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LITERARY BREVITIES 



LITERARY BREVITIES 



SELECTED AND EDITED BY 

JOHN G. WIGHT, A.B., A.M., Litt.D., Bowdoin 
Ph.D., Hamilton 

FORMER PRINCIPAL OF WADLEIGH HIGH 
SCHOOL, NEW YORK CITY 



D. C. HEATH & COMPANY 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



PN(boVi 

W4(o 



COPYBIGHT, 1913 

By D. C. Heath & Company 
1e3 



THE* PLIMPTON- PRESS 
NORWOOD* MA SS'U'S- A 



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)CI.A347728 



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THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 

TO MY FORMER ASSOCIATE TEACHERS, IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

OF THEIR FAITHFULNESS TO DUTY AND THEIR MANY 

KINDNESSES TO ME THEIR PRINCIPAL 

John G. Wight 
Clinton, N. Y. 



INTRODUCTION 

THE extracts contained in this volume have been 
made in connection with more than forty years 
of extensive reading. They are almost invari- 
ably short, and include a great variety of interesting 
facts, literary gems, and quotable epigrammatic say- 
ings. They are characterized by variety in points 
of authors cited and of matter chosen. But very few 
of them are to be found in other compilations of the 
kind. Authors are quoted quite as much for what 
they say as on account of their high literary stand- 
ing. Famous excerpts from writers of the first rank 
have been, to some extent, consciously excluded. On 
the other hand, the riches of a neglected literary man 
like Landor, or a not popularly known genius like 
Balzac, or even of writers having only a moderate 
reputation, have been freely drawn from. In fact, good 
things have been taken wherever found. This is in recog- 
nition of the fact, that a good thing said by an obscure 
writer is just as good as if it had been said by Shakspeare 
or Milton. Extracts from other than English authors 
have been generally taken from good translations, and 
always without giving the translator's name. 

The arrangement of selections under subject-headings 
is, in some instances, not severely accurate. For example, 
under "Wit" are placed humorous and facetious sayings, 
strictly speaking only allied to wit, and rarely the ex- 
tracts are, in sense, the opposite of what the heading 
implies. 



viii INTRODUCTION 

In the plan of the book, there has been no thought of 
copying such a work as Bartlett; to the contrary, the 
intention has been to choose and arrange interesting 
matter not usual in books of quotation. One feature of 
excellence claimed for these selections is, that they show, 
in their variety and in their appeal to good taste, the 
places and authors where the reader may confidently look 
for what is most entertaining and edifying in literature. 

It is believed that the book has appreciable value for 
writers and speakers, and for the general reader who may 
be seeking information or diversion; but especially for 
teachers of all grades and kinds. 

J. G. W. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Admiration 3 

Adversity 8 

Age 11 

Ambition 12 

Amusements 14 

Ancestry 15 

Anecdotes 15 

Anger 17 

Appearances 18 

Art 19 

Avarice 26 

Beauty 27 

Belief 30 

Benefits 31 

Biography 31 

Blunders — 35 

Books 37 

Bores 39 

Bulls 39 

Candor 40 

Care 40 

Chance 40 

Character 41 

Charity 46 

Cheerfulness 47 

Childhood 47 

Civilization 48 

Classics 55 

Cleanliness 55 

Composition 56 

Conceit 63 

Conduct 64 

Confidence 65 



PAGE 

Conquest 65 

Conscience 65 

Consistency 66 

Consolation 67 

Contempt 67 

Contentment .68 

Contradiction 68 

Conversation 70 

Convictions 72 

Courage 73 

Courtesy 75 

Crime 78 

Criticism 79 

Cruelty 88 

Custom 89 

Death 91 

Deceit 94 

Deeds 97 

Discretion 97 

Disease 101 

Disgrace 101 

Disgust 101 

Doubt 101 

Drama 102 

Dreams 106 

Duels 106 

Duty 107 

Economy 108 

Education 108 

Egotism 134 

Eloquence 135 

Enemees 143 

Energy 144 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Ennui 144 

Enthusiasm 145 

Envy 145 

Epigrams 148 

Evils 148 

Excess 149 

Experience 149 

Facts 150 

Faith 151 

Falsehood 151 

Fame 151 

Fate 158 

Faults 159 

Fear 159 

Fiction 160 

Filial Love 160 

Flattery 161 

Fools 162 

Forgiveness 164 

Fortune 165 

Friendship 167 

Genius 173 

Gossip 180 

Government 181 

Gratitude 183 

Greatness 183 

Habit 184 

Happiness 187 

Haste 192 

Hatred 193 

Health 195 

Heredity 196 

Heroism 197 

History 198 

Honesty 208 

Honor 209 

Hope 211 

Hospitality 211 

Humility 212 

Hyperbole 213 



PAGE 

Idiosyncrasies 213 

Idleness 223 

Ignorance 223 

Imitation 224 

Ingratitude 224 

Innocence 225 

Insults 225 

Intellect 226 

Jealousy 230 

Jests 230 

Joy 231 

Judgment 231 

Justice 232 

Knowledge 233 

Labor 234 

Laughter. 235 

Lawyers 235 

Letter-writing 236 

Liberty 236 

Life 237 

Literature 241 

Little Things 256 

Logic 257 

Longevity 257 

Love 258 

Luxury 266 

Magnanimity 267 

Manners 267 

Marriage 268 

Memory 269 

Miracles 270 

Misfortune 270 

Modesty 271 

Morality 272 

Motives 272 

Music 272 

Mythology 276 

Names 277 

National Characteristics. .278 
Nature 279 



CONTENTS 



XI 



PAGE 

Odd Sayings 288 

Opportunity 289 

Opposition 290 

Pain 290 

Parallelisms and Familiar 

Sayings 291 

Passion 311 

Pateence 311 

Patriotism 312 

Perfection 315 

Personal Characteristics .316 

Personal Influence 319 

Philosophy 320 

Physical Characteristics . . 323 

Pity 323 

Plagiarism 324 

Pleasure 326 

Poetry 328 

Politeness 335 

Politics 336 

Popularity 340 

Poverty 341 

Power 341 

Praise 342 

Precocity 343 

Prejudice 343 

Pride 344 

Punctuality 348 

Punishment 348 

Purpose 349 

Race 349 

Recreation 349 

Reform 350 

Regrets 350 

Religion 351 

Rest 367 

Royalty 367 

Scholarship 368 

Science 368 



PAGE 

Secrets 371 

Self-conceit 372 

Self-confidence 373 

Self-control 374 

Selfishness 375 

Self-knowledge 375 

Sensibdlity 376 

Service 376 

Shame 376 

Similes 376 

Sincerity 379 

Slander 379 

Slavery 380 

Sleep 380 

Society 381 

Solitude 383 

Statesmanship 383 

Success 384 

Superstition 390 

Talent 392 

Taste 392 

Temperance 394 

Temptation 395 

Time 395 

Translation 396 

Treason 396 

Truth 396 

Tyranny 400 

Unfilial Spirit 401 

Use 401 

Versatility 402 

Virtue 402 

War 406 

Wealth 412 

Will 415 

Wisdom 415 

Wishes 417 

Wit 418 

Woman 442 



LITERARY BREVITIES 



LITERARY BREVITIES 



ADMIRATION 

IT is a remark of Walter Pater, that the true value of 
souls is in proportion to what they can admire. As 
an apt comment on this, some one declares, that the 
time of his life he considers to have been wasted, from 
an intellectual point of view, was the time when he tried, 
in a spirit of dumb loyalty, to admire all the things that 
are said to be admirable. All have their periods of admira- 
tion; especially is this true of likings for certain writers 
as they affect one at different periods of life. At one time 
the absorbing author may be Tennyson or Scott or Haw- 
thorne; at another Thackeray or George Eliot or Landor; 
and again it may be Shakspeare or Goethe or Balzac. 
Sometimes, except for the influence of growth in years, 
it is impossible to account for these changes in taste. It 
is, furthermore, of quite frequent observation, that an 
immoderate admiration for a book upon the first reading 
is to be regarded with suspicion, as a revulsion in judg- 
ment is likely to ensue. The really great authors seldom 
take us by storm. An old-fashioned novel like "The 
Last Days of Pompeii," or Madame D'Arblay's " Evelina," 
having at length become somewhat antiquated in style, 
is less pleasing than it once was, owing to the reader's 
having formed his taste upon new models. 

T. W. Higginson has a pertinent fling at our, as yet, 
verdant American civilization, in which he declares, that 
to many the mere fact of foreign admiration is a sufficient 
proof of the greatness of an author — a foreign country 
being a kind of contemporaneous posterity. What has 



4 LITERARY BREVITIES 

been said in the way of criticism regarding the decadence 
of old writers cannot in any sense apply to the works of 
the greatest literary geniuses, the few classics that are for 
all time. Thackeray wished he could have been Shaks- 
peare's bootblack. Emerson's idol, next after Plato, was 
also Shakspeare. St. Chrysostom used to sleep with 
a manuscript of Aristotle under his pillow. Petrarch, 
who constantly carried a copy of Virgil with him, was 
delighted beyond measure upon receiving an original text 
of Homer. Charles II was known to carry "Hudibras" 
in his pocket. When Keats and Coleridge were first 
introduced, after a brief interview Keats turned to go 
away, but again turned back, saying he wished to carry 
away the memory of having pressed Coleridge's hand. 
Alexander, who was said to know the whole "Iliad" 
by heart, declared it to be his chief desire that Homer 
were alive. Thoreau once walked to Boston, a distance 
of eighteen miles, to hear Emerson lecture, and then walked 
back to Concord the same night. Thucydides, when a 
boy, was so impressed by Herodotus as he recited his 
history at the Olympic games, that he was moved to 
tears. It was said to be fatal to leave a volume of Mil- 
ton lying about where John Bright was, as the mere sight 
of it would draw him away from any serious political 
subject in hand. Gautier declared, that if ever he found 
a single line of Victor Hugo's to fall short in any way, 
he would not confess it to himself alone, in a cellar, on a 
dark night. Archdeacon Paley thought it the summum 
bonum of human existence to sit still and read " Tristram 
Shandy." Browning had his little son touch Beranger. 
After the battle of Marengo, Napoleon respected Arezzo 
out of regard for the memory of Petrarch. In a like 
spirit Alexander, when he was destroying Thebes, spared 
the house of Pindar. Goethe called Shakspeare the 



ADMIRATION 5 

"Will of Wills." Beethoven praised Handel as a musical 
composer, and said he would uncover his head and kneel 
on his grave. Ole Bull sold his last shirt to get money 
to hear Paganini. Lowell was sure Shakspeare was glad 
to see Hawthorne on the other side. Remarks Haydon, 
"I would not barter that sequestered tomb at Stratford 
for the Troad, the Acropolis, or the field of Marathon." 
A rough Yankee in Winchester cathedral, amazed by the 
artistic surroundings, rushed up to a stranger and ex- 
claimed, "It's too beautiful! I must shake hands with 
somebody." Richter said if Herder were not a poet he 
was something more — he was a poem. Dryden, where 
he confesses to having copied Shakspeare, affirms that 
in imitating such great authors he always surpasses him- 
self. Demosthenes transcribed Thucydides six times. 
It pleased the great Grecian orator to hear a basket 
woman say, "This is that Demosthenes." Victor Hugo 
felt highly complimented when some one showed him a 
pulpit on which an admirer had placed a copy of his 
"Les Miserables" beside the Bible. Ruskin, confessedly 
one of the most elegant writers of prose, declared no 
description of his to be worth four lines of Tennyson. 

In contemplating the great, our admiration sometimes 
amounts to awe. Scott confessed that he never felt 
awed in the presence of anyone except the Duke of Wel- 
lington. Alcibiades said Socrates was the only person 
who ever made him feel ashamed of himself. Sidney 
Smith had a great feeling of reverence for bishops — so 
great that, owing to nervousness, he would roll a crumb 
of bread in his hand when he sat next one at a dinner- 
table, and if next an archbishop would roll crumbs in both 
hands. We are informed by Carlyle, that Dr. Johnson 
only bowed to every clergyman or man with a "shovel 
hat." Fisher Ames, if he had been absent during a 



6 LITERARY BREVITIES 

debate in the Continental Congress, but came in before 
the vote was taken, always voted as Roger Sherman did, 
as he thought Sherman always voted right. Heine pre- 
pared fine speeches to make to Goethe when they should 
meet, but in the event they all failed him, and he only 
told Goethe that the plums of Saxony were delicious. 
It was next to impossible for George William Curtis to 
deliver an address in which he did not make some allusion 
to Sir Philip Sidney, the scholar, author, courtier, and 
perfect gentleman. Poe's tribute to a beautiful woman 
was, "I saw no heaven — but in her eyes." It is recorded 
that the executioner who was to behead Charles I, before 
performing the duties of his office, knelt before the king 
and begged his royal forgiveness. Bolingbroke remarked 
of Marlborough, "He is so great a man that I have 
forgotten his faults." St. Simon found Fenelon's per- 
sonal attractiveness so great, that it required an effort 
to cease looking at him. Thackeray gives an example 
of extreme unreasoning admiration in an allusion to what 
sometimes happens in the connubial state, where he says, 
"Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet call 
him an angel." The diamond necklace of Anne of Austria 
gave rise to the aphorism, that the bracelets would have 
been of priceless value if they had not been unfortunate 
enough to be placed in contact with arms so beautiful 
as the queen's. The old lady said of her minister, whose 
sermons she did not understand, "He has a heavenly 
tone." Cumberland said of Pitt, "I don't know him, but 
from what you tell me, Pitt is what is scarce — he is a 
man." Addison thought Aristotle the greatest philos- 
opher, Polybius the most impartial historian, and Cicero 
the most consummate statesman of all antiquity. Charles 
Lamb calls Kent, in Lear, the noblest pattern of virtue 
which even Shakspeare has conceived. 



ADMIRATION 7 

Admiration for the beauty of natural scenery is, 
essentially, a modern development. The ancient classics 
are almost entirely wanting in allusion to it. Whatever 
references to mountain, vale, landscape, or sea are found 
in them, are little more than expressions of wonder or 
fear. It is even said of Rousseau, the reputed discoverer of 
beauty in nature, that although he spent eighteen months 
in Venice, he never once alludes to the natural attractions 
of the place. Goethe's preference for art as being above 
nature is shown where he declares himself so taken with 
Michelangelo, that after him he has no taste for nature. 
In a similar vein some one speaks of a "Raphael sky." 

The principle embodied in nil admirari, the opposite 
of admiration, is indicated by Dowden in what follows, — 
"The wife of an exalted scholar cannot always maintain 
the adoring attitude assumed by her husband's passing 
admirers." It is the opinion of Balzac, that a writer's 
own family and friends are incapable of judging him. 

The lapsing from a first enthusiasm over an author 
applies also, but in a slightly different way, to personal 
attachments and to social and business connections. 
There is, speaking in general, danger of going too far in 
commending persons with whom we may have become 
intimately associated, lest a subsequent rupture make 
the situation awkward and even calamitous. A sugges- 
tive example of this danger is Pope Leo's too ready and 
complete endorsement of Henry VIII. What shattering 
of bosom friendships is sometimes made by political and 
business complications, is only too well known. Yet, it 
may be urged, life would be dreary enough if excessive 
caution in forming confidences were to become the rule; 
"if," as Longfellow has expressed it, "the fields gave no 
verdure for fear of the storm." 



8 LITERARY BREVITIES 



ADVERSITY 

THE thought of trying to make the best of a bad 
bargain is anything but comforting; yet misfor- 
tune inevitably comes to all at some stage in the journey 
of life, and teaches the good of ill, reminding us that 
there is no great loss without some small gain. That 
adversity may prove a blessing in disguise, is of not infre- 
quent observation. As a confirmation of this, it will be 
recalled, that when, in the year 1666, the entire business 
portion of London was destroyed by fire, what seemed 
to be an irreparable loss was more than made good by 
the purification of the recently plague-stricken quarter, 
and the beautifying of the burned district under the 
direction of Christopher Wren. The exiled Duke in the 
Forest of Arden, who 

"Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything," 

in a delightful resume chants, — "Sweet are the uses of 
adversity." William James assures us, that in supreme 
sorrow lesser vexations may become a consolation; and 
likewise, that two afflictions, well put together, shall be a 
solace. Goethe affirmed, that it had been his lot to bear 
a succession of joys and sorrows, either of which, without 
the other, would have put an end to his life. Thackeray 
would like to know who is more worthy of respect than a 
brave man in misfortune. In the same line of thought 
is the remark of Eugene Sue, that nothing is more touching 
than suffering goodness. Henry James thinks joy brings 
people less together than sorrow. It is an observation of 
Lowell, that joy and sorrow are sisters surely, and very 
like each other too, or else both would not bring tears as 
they do equally. Cleon, the tanner of Athens, asserts 



ADVERSITY 9 

that ordinary good fortune is safer than extraordinary; 
and that mankind find it easier to drive away adversity 
than to retain prosperity. It is a remark of Keats, that 
only those who have tasted an exquisite joy can feel the 
power of sadness. 

Excessive grief, as a result of adversity, sometimes 
manifests itself strangely. Goethe, who was known to 
be cold, when informed of his son's death, appeared calm, 
but it was afterwards ascertained that he had broken a 
blood-vessel from suppressed emotion. One of Balzac's 
characters is represented, on the death of his wife, as 
taking out his watch, breaking the mainspring, and hang- 
ing it up beside the hearth. Ole Bull once tried to com- 
mit suicide by jumping into the Seine, because his beloved 
violin had been stolen. According to Shakspeare, great 
griefs medicine the less. Vatel, a famous cook, committed 
suicide because the fish had not arrived in time for Louis 
XIVs dinner. Of adversity as the producer of despair, 
examples are not wanting. After the overwhelming de- 
feat of Varus by the German Arminius, Augustus was 
known to beat his head against a wall and to exclaim, 
"Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions." In his 
drama, "Antony and Octavius," Landor represents Cleo- 
patra, after the battle of Actium, as trying to assure 
Antony of happier days to come, when Antony replies, — 

"Never, when those so high once fall, their weight 
Keeps them forever down." 

Charles Lamb, in his old age, mournfully complained, 
"There is no one to call me Charley now." Of the short- 
lived but poignant grief of childhood, Charles Reade 
observes, "At her age a little cloud seems to darken the 
whole sky." Cicero's assertion that nothing dries so 
soon as a tear, in a peculiar manner applies to the young. 



10 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Dean Swift was wont to deplore the day of his birth, and 
to celebrate each anniversary of it by reading the book of 
Job. Charles Lamb mentions a lugubrious friend who 
would cast a damper on a funeral. Dumas asserts, that 
great griefs contain within themselves the germs of their 
consolation. Horace Walpole says griefs are fond and 
griefs are generous. 

Adversity has its hopeful side. Macaulay has observed, 
that nothing is so credulous as misery. In the same vein 
Pope says, — "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." 
It is the common infirmity of mankind, Machiavelli 
asserts, in a calm to make no reckoning of a tempest. 
Victor Hugo reminds us, that destiny never opens one 
door without shutting another at the same time. Burke 
thinks wisdom consists in no small degree in knowing 
what amount of evil is to be tolerated. Shakspeare says 
grief makes one hour ten, and thus gives a hint that it is 
a part of personal discipline to regret as little as possible. 
The following is from Shakspeare, — 

"What's gone, and what's past help, 
Should be past grief." 

It is remarked by Mrs. Craigie, that people who have the 
misfortune to be born above the common anxieties of 
breadwinning make more importance of the few things 
they are able to grieve over. It is the advice of some one, 
that we should not meet trouble half way. Richardson 
would have nothing said that begins with "0." Ulysses 
wept for his dog, but not for his wife. Who never wet 
his bread with tears, declares Goethe, knows ye not, ye 
heavenly powers. 



AGE 11 

AGE 

IT is interesting to note the different stages of life that 
are variously marked as the beginning of old age. 
The Earl of Rosebery declares, that Pitt was never young, 
and that Fox certainly could never have been old. Bul- 
wer remarks of some one, that he never had any youth, 
being one of those men who come into the world with the 
pulse of a centenarian. Montaigne called himself old at 
forty-seven. Whoever loves, affirms Dr. Holmes, is in no 
condition old. Goethe was in his prime at seventy. 
Socrates wrote well at seventy. De Foe wrote Robinson 
Crusoe at the age of sixty. Cervantes was fifty-eight 
when he published the first part of Don Quixote; the 
second part was issued ten years later. Some one has 
observed, that a choleric man ought never to grow old. 
There are few, observes Steele, who can grow old with 
a good grace. Thackeray thinks we grow simpler as we 
grow older. Old men, says Aristophanes, are boys twice 
over. Victor Hugo ^alls an old man a thinking ruin. 
In contrast to this we have senesco non segnesco. Goethe 
warns us to beware taking the faults of our youth into 
old age, for old age brings with it its own defects. The 
same reminds us, that being waited on continually we 
become preternaturally old and decrepit. It has been 
affirmed by some one, that all who have lived to be a 
century and a half old were beggars. Extreme old age 
has been characterized as having one foot already in 
Charon's boat. The average length of life of civilized 
man has been estimated to be thirty-three years, a figure 
that must be increased, if more recent statisticians are 
correct in asserting that the average length of life, owing 
to improved hygienic conditions and scientific discoveries, 
has in modern times been perceptibly increased. Dis- 



12 LITERARY BREVITIES 

raeli states, that thirty-three is the age at which the world's 
saviors have died. He gives a list of twenty persons to 
prove his statement, our Saviour, of course, standing first. 
Alexander the Great, by no means to be significantly 
called a savior, is in the list; so is Shelley, who died at 
thirty. Emerson asserts, that the youth of great men is 
seldom marked by any peculiarities that arrest attention. 
As exceptions to this, we have such prodigies as Goethe 
and John Stuart Mill, who were called learned at the age 
of three. It is surprising in how short a time a few illus- 
trious men have done their work and then passed away. 
Keats died at twenty-five; Shelley at thirty; Byron at 
thirty-six; Lucan at twenty-six. There are but few 
instances of premature deaths among famous women. 
We have to be old, remarks De Coulevain, to realize what 
youth is. 

AMBITION 

THERE are few breasts, Le Sage declares, capacious 
enough to afford house-room for two such opposite 
inmates as political ambition and gratitude. Plutarch 
observes, that those who aspire to great things must 
always have something to suffer. Joubert calls ambition 
pitiless. Benson does not class ambition among Chris- 
tian motives; according to Milton, it is the last infirmity 
of noble minds. Some one calls it the highest of wishes 
to surpass the felicity of Augustus and the virtue of 
Trajan. It is a laudable ambition for a man to wish to 
coin a word that shall live forever in a language. C. C. 
Everett thinks the impression one gets from Browning's 
writings is, that the true life consists rather in aspiration 
than attainment. In 1827, Goethe predicted the Suez 
canal, the Panama canal, and the joining of the sources 
of the Rhine and the Danube; and wished he might live 



AMBITION 13 

to see the consummation of all three. It was Thoreau's 
notion, that in the long run men hit only what they aim 
at. Hamerton asserts, that it is the dreams of youth 
that become the realities of manhood. Stevenson ob- 
serves, that people are generally cast for the leading parts 
in their own imaginations. Julius Caesar preferred being 
first in a little town to being second at Rome. Richelieu 
liked to be in a place where he was the strongest. From 
Browning we have this, — 

"Nothing has been which shall not bettered be 
Hereafter." 

It is Goethe's observation, that man loves to conquer, 
likes not to feel secure. 

Of the unreasonableness of ambition Shakspeare writes, 
— "Beggars, mounted, run their horse to death." It is 
a Scotch saying, that "ower mickle water drowns the 
miller." Balzac reminds the over-ambitious, that larks 
don't fall down roasted. Napoleon confessed that it was 
making war on Russia that ruined him. The African 
king wished to be painted white. The following is from 
Victor Hugo, — 

"When souls are thirsty they must drink, 
Though it be poison." 

The Greek proverb tells of a foolishly ambitious man who 
trained himself to be a potter by beginning on an amphora. 
As indicating that even great ambition may not always 
be unreasonable, Victor Hugo asks, "Because the goal is 
distant, is that any reason why we should not march 
towards it?" What matters it, remarks Seneca, how far 
Alexander extended his conquests, if he was not satisfied 
with what he had. In the opinion of Macaulay, the 
government which attempts more than it ought will 



14 LITERARY BREVITIES 

accomplish less. Following is one of Browning's exquisite 
verses, — "Had I God's leave, how I would alter things." 
Fielding declares the truest mark of greatness to be 
insatiability. Walt Whitman humbly confesses, that he 
does not want the constellations any nearer. Some one 
has observed, that a man grasping for power finds the 
most needy the most serviceable. Impose limits, says 
Balzac, and who does not wish to go beyond them? 
Great sails, Landor thinks, are ill adapted to small vessels. 
Horace represents the Titans trying to place Pelion on 
top of shadowy Olympus. Scott, using an "old saw," 
gives warning, that covetousness bursts the bag and spills 
the grain. Cervantes advises against trying to make a 
new world. 

AMUSEMENTS 

ACCORDING to Richter, play is the first poetry of 
the human being. Chess is said to have been 
invented by the general of an army during a famine, to 
keep the soldiers from mutiny. The historian Hume was 
fond of the game of whist. Though Dr. Johnson never 
played cards, he approved of them, as being very useful 
in life as the generator of kindness. Joy is the accompani- 
ment of amusement. In Heine's view, life is at bottom 
so awfully serious that none of us could endure it without 
the blending of pathos and comedy. 

Great eccentricity is sometimes shown in the different 
ways men take their amusements. Donatus was busy 
catching flies. A bus-driver in London, it is said, when 
he has a holiday, sometimes rides with the man who 
takes his place. While the Dutch fleet was sailing up 
the Thames, Charles II was amusing himself with hunt- 
ing a moth about the supper-room. At the play, people 
are said to confirm their judgment by clapping of hands. 



ANECDOTES 15 

ANCESTRY 

A GERMAN writer advises people to be careful in 
choosing their ancestors. John Bright made an 
epigram on families that came over with the Conqueror 
and never did anything else. Lowell has observed, that 
the agreeable aristocrats are those who are born to the 
aristocratic state and are therefore unconscious. Dr. 
Johnson, who confessed that he could hardly tell who his 
grandfather was, apologizes for primogeniture, in that it 
makes but one fool in a family. Carlyle alludes to Charles 
Seymour, the proud Duke of Somerset, as one in whom 
the pride of birth amounted almost to a disease. Virgil 
speaks of one as avis atavisque potens. Sir William 
Herschel's father was a Hanoverian bandsman; his 
mother was a coarse, ignorant woman. The German 
peasantry had coats of arms. In Dante's time anyone 
was considered noble who counted a knight among his 
ancestors. Cicero thought every man began his own 
ancestry. 

ANECDOTES 

TOM HYDE, the tailor, standing on the gallows, was 
asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," 
he said, " to remember to make a knot in their thread before 
taking the first stitch." When Prince Napoleon was 
received publicly at Cork, the mayor, with confident 
pride, addressed him in very poor French. The Prince, 
who replied in choice English, said he regretted, as he 
never had any opportunity to study the noble Irish 
language, he was unable to follow the words of the worthy 
chief magistrate. The witty Rowland Hill, one day when 
his chapel, with a thinner attendance than usual, sud- 
denly filled during a shower of rain, said he had often 



16 LITERARY BREVITIES 

heard of religion being used as a cloak, but never before 
as an umbrella. When Washington asked Mad Anthony 
Wayne if he would storm Stony Point, Wayne replied, 
"I will storm hell if you will plan it." At Copenhagen, 
when a subordinate officer told Nelson that the admiral 
was signaling to withdraw from the fight, Nelson placed 
the glass to his blind eye, and, saying he was unable to 
see any such signal, ordered his own fighting signal to be 
kept up, and continued the engagement until the enemy 
struck. Charlotte Cushman tells of a noisy fellow in the 
gallery, that when the audience cried, "Throw him over," 
a woman with a thin voice interjected, "Don't; kill him 
where he is." When the Methodists objected to Father 
Taylor's being on intimate terms with Emerson, believing 
that as a Unitarian Emerson must go to hell, Taylor met 
their protest with, "If Emerson goes to hell he will change 
the climate there, and emigration will set that way." 
Mr. Henry T. Finck, in his life of Grieg, relates this 
amusing incident about the great musical composer. 
When out fishing with his friend Franz Beyer, a musical 
theme came into Grieg's head, which he instantly jotted 
down on a piece of paper and laid the paper on the bench 
beside him. Beyer picked the paper up unobserved, and 
whistled the theme. Grieg turned to him in surprise 
and asked, "What is that?" Beyer replied, "Only an 
idea I just got." "The devil you say," said Grieg, "I just 
got that same idea myself." Balzac thinks the best 
tales are told at special hours; that no one ever told a 
story well standing or fasting. A French lady, having 
married an Englishman who spoke little, excused his 
reticence on the ground that he was always thinking of 
Locke and Newton. When the last sheet of Johnson's 
dictionary was received by the publisher, the latter ex- 
claimed, "Thank God, I have done with him." When 



ANGER 17 

Johnson was told of this, he said, "I am glad he thanks 
God for anything." Mr. Bentham, in Guy Mannering, 
when Dominie Sampson was reading to him his commis- 
sion as justice of the peace, listened as far as, "The King 
has been pleased" — "Pleased," exclaimed Bentham, 
"honest gentlemen, I am sure he cannot be better pleased 
than I am." 

ANGER 

ALLEN CUNNINGHAM remarks, that there is 
nothing so blind as anger. Carlyle affirms, that 
violence does even justice unjustly. In a similar vein 
Balzac says passion never reflects. This from Shak- 
speare, — 

" Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot 
That you do singe yourself." 

Lord Palmerston always lost his good manners when he 
lost his temper. Our own anger, says Lubbock, does us 
more harm than the thing which makes us angry. It has 
been remarked by some one, that he only employs his 
passion who can make no use of his reason. Ira furor 
brevis est, is from Horace. From Shakspeare this, — 
"I'd set my ten commandments in your face." Landor 
has this, — "Heat an Arab and he keeps hot for life." 
In any controversy, it has been stated, the instant we 
feel angry we have already ceased striving for truth and 
begun striving for ourselves. Most of our regrettable 
actions are impulsive. Balzac's woman made it a point 
always to get into a rage before her husband did. The 
noble Kent thinks "anger has a privilege." Rousseau 
thinks women have the art of concealing their anger, 
especially when it is great. It is well known, that an 
angry man can be easily appeased if we can succeed in 



18 LITERARY BREVITIES 

making him smile. Racine believes all anger to be an 
excess of love. Balzac calls an angry look a silent epi- 
gram; he also tells of one who slammed the door with the 
violence of a disinherited heir. Fielding has observed, 
that anger, when removed, often gives new life to affec- 
tion. Landor says it is the nature of the impudent never 
to be angry. Beaconsfield calls the Jesuits wise men, 
since they never lose their temper. Luther declared that 
he never worked better than when inspired by anger; 
that when angry he could write, pray, and preach well. 
It was Mahomet's advice, that when one got angry he 
must sit down, and if his anger still endured, he should 
lie down. It is proverbial that heavy showers do not last 
long. Socrates was silent when angry. William James 
psychologizes to the effect, that the memory of an insult 
may make us angrier than the insult did when we received 
it. The same writer reminds us, that Christ was fierce 
upon occasion. Once when Laura Keene was getting 
into a rage, Sothern called out, "Wait a bit"; and after 
crossing the room and turning off the gas he said, "Now 
go ahead; I do so hate to see such a pretty face in a 
rage." 

APPEARANCES 

CARLYLE who had met Daniel Webster, wondered 
whether any man could possibly be as great as he 
looks. Miinsterberg informs us, that a little strip of 
gray paper appears white on a black ground, and black 
on a white one. It is not always safe, as some one asserts, 
to judge a gentleman by his finger-nails. Dumas says 
you can always guess the message by the messenger's 
face. It is a statement of Hare, that few persons have 
courage enough to appear as good as they really are. 
Many times what is sugar to the taste, observes Carlyle, 



ART 19 

is sugar-of-lead when it is swallowed. Thackeray bids 
us have a care of appearances, which are as ruinous as 
guilt. According to Landor, serenity is no sign of se- 
curity. Marguerite of Valois, sister of Charles IX of 
France, married Henry of Navarre much against her will. 
When asked at the altar if she consented to the marriage, 
she made no response, and was still silent when the 
question was repeated; her brother Charles made her 
bow assent by striking the back of her neck and thus 
forcing her head forward. 

ART 

IT is observed by Leigh Hunt, that Coleridge, when 
the crew in the "Ancient Mariner" are dead, does not 
set men, ghosts, or hobgoblins to man the ships again, 
but re-animates, for a while, the crew themselves. Sy- 
monds advises artists who aspire to immortality to shun 
the precious metals. In art, says Sainte-Beuve, nothing 
counts but the excellent, and the excellent in art may 
always be an exception, an accident of nature, a caprice 
of heaven, a gift of God. Coleridge thought Chantry's 
admirable bust of Wordsworth was more like Words- 
worth than Wordsworth himself was. The Greek sculp- 
tors and painters knew hardly anything, scientifically, 
of anatomy. Lavater held it to be quite impossible for 
any man of originality to be painted. It is a happy re- 
mark of Arlo Bates, that science may show a man how to 
live, but that art makes life worth living. Lowell thinks 
it was the great merit of the old painters, that they did 
not try to be original. The mission of art, observes 
Balzac, is not to copy nature, but to reproduce it. It was 
the belief of Reynolds, that it is impossible for two painters, 
in the same line of art, to live in friendship. Turner was 



20 LITERARY BREVITIES 

a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Thackeray says George 
II did not love the fine arts, but he did not pretend to 
love them. Haydon asserts, that no nation has ever 
been refined intellectually without art, nor ever can be. 
When Charles II complained to Waller that he had written 
a better panegyric on Cromwell than on himself, Waller 
gave as an excuse, that poets succeed better in fiction 
than in truth. This is Landor's estimate of the compara- 
tive merits of the three sister arts, — "If there are paces 
between sculpture and painting, there are parasangs be- 
tween painting and poetry; sculpture and painting are 
moments of life, poetry is life itself." It is difficult to 
induce young artists to study the principles of anatomy, 
when they are told that the greatest artists the world 
ever saw did not know them. Ellen Terry thinks a great 
actor can do nothing badly. Hawthorne observes, that 
a genuine love of painting and sculpture, and perhaps 
music, seems often to have distinguished men capable of 
every social crime. The same eminent authority assures 
us, that he does not remember to have recognized a man 
by having previously seen his portrait. Praxiteles re- 
placed a charioteer of Calamis by one of his own, that the 
horses, in the depiction of which Calamis was famous, 
might not surpass their driver. Heine thinks the sublime 
and terrible far easier to represent in art than the petty 
and paltry. Hawthorne regards suggestiveness to be the 
highest merit of poetry, pictures, and statuary. The best 
artists, both in poetry and painting, Southey asserts, 
have produced the most. It is a thought of Lewes, that 
while art enshrines the great sadness of the world, it is 
itself not sad. The human form, in the opinion of Flax- 
man, is the most perfect of all forms and contains in it 
the principles of all inferior forms. Story thinks it doubt- 
ful if Phidias made any statues of marble, his art being 



ART 21 

chiefly in toreutic work, in gold and ivory or bronze. 
In a novel, remarks Goethe, it is chiefly sentiment and 
events that are exhibited; in the drama it is character 
and deeds. Painting in oil was discovered about the 
middle of the fifteenth century. You may paint with a 
big brush, it has been said, and yet not be a great painter. 
Victor Hugo, with his customary discernment, reminds 
us, that science dies, art alone is immortal; that Aristotle 
is outstripped, Homer is not. The rough designer, 
Michelangelo, thought painting in oil only fit for women 
and idlers. We are told by St. Augustine, that in his 
day no portrait of the Virgin Mary existed. Phidias por- 
trayed both himself and Pericles on the shield of Athena. 
Story says it was not in harmony with the practice of the 
Greeks to inscribe on the pedestal of their statues the 
names of the artists. Phidias was a slow, pains-taking 
worker. Michelangelo worked with great rapidity. 
Lafcadio Hearn thinks the Greeks never made white 
statues, but always painted them. The marvelous works 
of art in ancient Greece were all in some way connected 
with the worship of the gods. According to Dr. Harris, 
Christianity has not been able to express its distinctive 
ideas in sculpture; it finds painting a far more adequate 
means. In the fine arts, says Scott, there is scarce any 
alternative between distinguished success and downright 
failure. Lessing says with much grace, — "We see the 
force of the tempest in the wrecks and corpses with which 
the beach is strewn." Aristotle seems to have been the 
first to discover that a statue lies hid in every block of 
marble. The last touches, Balzac states, make the pic- 
ture. The weaving of tapestry, oil painting, the art of 
painting on glass, even pocket-watches, and sun-dials 
are said to have been originally invented in the Nether- 
lands. Hamerton would rank a painter, not by his merit, 



22 LITERARY BREVITIES 

but by his fame. All art, Schiller affirms, is dedicated 
to pleasure, and, he declares, there can be no higher or 
worthier end than to make man happy. It was Duval's 
theory, that all painters without exception have a second 
love for music. Lowell finds all great artistic minds 
essentially conservative. Blake believed his method of 
coloring had been revealed to him in a vision. To pre- 
serve a faithful picture of the burning of the fleet in the 
harbor of Techesme, a ship of war was actually blown up 
on the roads of Livorne, before the studio of an artist. 
John Adams was indifferent to the fine arts, and once 
avowed that he would not give sixpence for a picture of 
Raphael or a statue of Phidias. When Mummius was 
preparing to send from Corinth to Rome some of the 
famous works of the Greek sculptors, he told the men in 
charge of the packing that if they broke or lost any of the 
limbs of Venus or Apollo, he should require that they 
replace them with new ones. Says Joubert, — "If a 
work shows marks of the file, it has not been polished 
enough." Goethe compares true art to good company. 
Dinocrates proposed forming Mt. Athos into a statue of 
Alexander the Great. In Turner's house there was little 
to show that he cared for any other art than his own. 
Both Scott and Byron were devoid of feeling for the fine 
arts. Painters maintain, that the same motions and 
screwings of the face that serve for weeping serve for 
laughter too. Hazlitt quotes this, — "If thou'st not 
seen the Louvre thou art damned." When Fielding 
wished to compliment a painter, he would not say the work 
breathes, but it thinks. This is from Shakspeare, — 
"To think an English courtier may be wise and never 
see the Louvre." Dante Gabriel Rossetti was both poet 
and painter. Art literature, like Lessing's Laocoon, may, 
as it did in the case of Gladstone, awaken in a man a love 



ART 23 

of art. Balzac asserts, that artists command the ages. 
It is an observation of some one, that Rembrandt painted 
what he saw; the Greeks painted what they felt. Ac- 
cording to William Winter, the actor is born, but artists 
must be made. The best artist, R. L. Stevenson thinks, 
is not the man who fixes his eye on posterity, but the one 
who loves his art. Horace tells of a Greek artist who could 
paint nothing well but a cypress tree; when asked to 
paint a shipwreck, he inquired if they wouldn't like some- 
thing in the cypress line introduced into it. Queen 
Elizabeth disregarded art and artists. It is the idea of 
Allen Cunningham, that true art is nature exalted and 
refined. Reynolds admired one style and painted another. 
Paint the soul, enjoins Browning, never mind the arms 
and legs. It has been observed, that the best artists are 
not necessarily the best teachers. In the last part of the 
fifteenth century painting rendered Italy the most re- 
nowned nation of the earth. Goethe declared that he 
could pardon all faults of the man in the player; but 
that no fault of the player could he pardon in the man. 
The American sculptor Powers knew nothing, scientifically, 
of the human frame. Symonds asserts, that the Greeks 
and the Hindoos are the only two races who have produced 
the drama as a fine art originally and independently of 
foreign influences. The English artist Hudson, instructor 
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, could paint a head successfully, 
but needed help to put it on the shoulders. In no country, 
observes Allen Cunningham, has painting risen suddenly 
into eminence; while poetry takes wings at once. Michel- 
angelo did not work from clay models, and did his own 
chipping. It is a statement of Balzac, that literature 
revolves around seven situations; that music expresses 
everything with seven notes; and that painting employs 
seven colors. The same author tells us, that art consists 



24 LITERARY BREVITIES 

not so much in the knowledge of principles as in the manner 
of applying them. It has been estimated, that the best 
painted and the best preserved pictures will last only 
about 800 years. Grecian literary art, the most perfect 
the world has ever seen, may be neglected at intervals, 
yet will in due time unfailingly re-assert its supremacy. 
Heine thinks it surprising, that a book which is so rich as 
"Don Quixote " in picturesque matter has as yet found no 
painter who has taken from it subjects for a series of 
independent art works. Alexander allowed no one but 
Apelles to paint him. Seneca has the following, — "A 
man is never the less an artist for not having his tools 
about him, or a musician, because he wants his fiddle; 
nor is he less brave because his hands are bound; or the 
worse pilot for being on dry ground." Chesterton asserts, 
that there are some things which a fifth-rate painter 
knows which a first-rate art critic does not know; and 
that there are some things which a sixth-rate organist 
knows which a first-rate judge of music does not know. 
It was a notion of Bacon, that the best part of beauty is 
that which a picture cannot express. Chesterton thinks 
there are many styles of art which perfectly competent 
critics cannot endure. It was a maxim of Zeuxis, that he 
took time to paint, and that he painted for eternity. 
According to Flaxman, Plato studied painting, and 
Socrates was a sculptor by profession. Flaxman tells us, 
that the statues of Jupiter and Neptune were at first 
beardless; but later, in harmony with Homer's verses, 
they were bearded. Phidias had a knowledge of painting 
as well as of sculpture. Flaxman affirms, that Michel- 
angelo is without an equal in the three sister arts. To 
make the port against both wind and tide is said to be 
the seaman's art. Flaxman is authority for the state- 
ment, that no sepulchral statue is known in England before 



ART 25 

the time of William the Conqueror. We are told, that a 
great artist is a king, that he rules over the world of imag- 
ination. Balzac describes a certain good artist as one 
who does not spoil canvas. The statue of Jupiter at 
Elis, by Phidias, was esteemed one of the wonders of the 
world. John Van Eyck, of Bruges, was the inventor of 
oil painting; the ancient painters used wax. Raphael's 
Sistine Madonna is said to have been painted for a banner 
to be carried in a procession. From Milton we have, — 

"The work some praise, 
And some the architect." 

The Sultan Hassan Mosque at Cairo was so artistic a 
structure that, according to report, its designer was 
either put to death or had his hands cut off, to prevent a 
repetition of such a triumph of workmanship. Following 
are lines from Emerson, — 

"He builded better than he knew, 
The conscious stone to beauty grew." 

It is not the privilege of the artist, observes Beethoven, 
to be Jupiter's guest on Olympus all the time. It has 
been noted, that the loveliest Grecian statues were mostly 
expressive of repose; the Laocoon and the Niobe are 
among the few exceptions. We are told, that art precedes 
philosophy and even science. Until very recent times, it 
is said, no landscape painter began or finished an oil 
painting out of doors and from nature. Hamerton says 
noble pictures are never accurate; he thinks all attempts 
to paint skies from nature are futile, and that the painting 
of clouds from nature is an impossibility. How serious 
every trifle becomes, remarks Goethe, the moment it is 
treated according to the principles of art. It is asserted 
by Walt Whitman, that all architecture is what you do to 



26 LITERARY BREVITIES 

it when you look upon it. It is claimed that the coloring 
of Rubens makes some defects in his figures pass unre- 
garded. Shelley thinks the most memorable epoch in the 
history of the world is the time from the birth of Pericles 
to the death of Aristotle; that the painting and the music 
of that period, essentially lost to us, were, as claimed by 
contemporary writers, of the highest merit. Other pic- 
tures, Lamb affirms, we look at; Hogarth's prints we 
read. The art of taking casts of the faces of the dead 
seems to have come into practice about the middle of the 
fourteenth century. A restoration, Victor Hugo compares 
to an oil painting blackened by time and revarnished. 

AVARICE 

ACCORDING to Bancroft, avarice is the vice of 
declining years. Those desiring many things want 
many things, Horace says. Balzac observes, that charity 
lays up a treasure in heaven which avarice lays up on 
earth. In plain truth, says Montaigne, it is not want, 
but rather abundance, that creates avarice. Misers are 
said to have no belief in a future life. The artist Turner 
had a passion for accumulating money; avarice, however, 
is the passion for keeping money. Scott mentions a 
miller who grudged every drop of water that went past his 
mill. Avarice is thought by some to be the most degrading 
of human passions. Where poverty ceases, it is said, 
avarice begins. It has been affirmed, that there is no 
fortress against an ass laden with gold. It is proverbial 
that a merchant never has enough till he has a little more. 
Junius declares, that of all the vices avarice is most apt 
to taint and corrupt man. 



BEAUTY 27 

, BEAUTY 

BEAUTY is its own excuse for being, says Emerson. 
The same author says beauty may be felt; it 
may be produced; it cannot be defined. Grecian 
athletes were forbidden to look at beauties. The follow- 
ing is from Tasso, — 

"The throne of beauty hath an easy stair, 
His bark is fit to sail with every wind, 
The breach he makes no wisdom can repair." 

If you wish to make your life complete, cultivate the 
esthetic. Balzac describes some one as being as ugly as the 
capital sins. The same speaks of a woman fair enough to 
dispense with ornaments altogether, and as knowing how 
to reduce her toilet to the condition of a merely secondary 
charm. Shakspeare declares, that where fair is not, 
praise cannot mend the brow. George Sand thinks it not 
desirable that a young girl should grow good looking too 
early. George Eliot speaks of certain women who are 
never handsome until they grow old. According to Pascal, 
the shape of Cleopatra's nose had much to do with the 
history of the world. It is the dictum of Hazlitt, that 
refinement creates beauty everywhere. She is not a 
beauty, Henry James says with discrimination, but she is 
beautiful, two very different things; a beauty has no 
faults in her face; the face of a beautiful woman may have 
faults that only deepen its charm. The three most beauti- 
ful things in nature, declares Balzac, are a frigate under 
sail, a horse at full speed, and a woman dancing. You 
can't eat a lily nor own stock in a sunset. This from 
Browning, — 

"Pansies, eyes that laugh, bear beauty's prize 
From violets, eyes that dream." 



28 LITERARY BREVITIES 

The same has again, — 

"That budding face imbued with dewy sleep." 

Cowley compares a beautiful woman to a porcupine, that 
sends an arrow from every part. As beautiful as Antinous, 
the page of Hadrian. Even pearls are dark before the 
whiteness of his teeth, comes from the Persian. If you 
wish to preserve your heart shut your eyes, is from the 
Persian also. Adorned with beauty's grace and virtue's 
store, is from Spenser. Beauty is nature's coin, says 
Milton. Perhaps there is a limit to men's physical beauty, 
observes Balzac, while the beauty of the soul is infinite. 
The same calls beauty a veil which often serves to hide 
many imperfections. The same again asserts, that noth- 
ing is beautiful but what we feel to be useless; and that 
women who are still handsome when past fifty are too 
fat. Goldsmith speaks of a faded woman carrying the 
remains of beauty. Who has ever thought of a deformed 
angel? asks Balzac. Michelangelo's father said the boy 
was about as homely as he could be without making 
faces. Her eyes are sapphires set in snow, is the happy 
expression of Thomas Lodge. You mend the jewel by 
wearing it, is the diction and thought of the incomparable 
Shakspeare. This also is from Shakspeare, — 

"A withered Hermit, five score winters worn, 
Might shake off fifty looking in her eye." 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever, is from Keats. The 
light that never was on sea or land, is Wordsworth's. 
From Waller this, — 

"Small is the worth 
Of beauty from the light retired." 

This from Wordsworth, — 



BEAUTY 29 

"Fair as a star, when only one 
Is shining in the sky/' 

Henry James thinks beauty has at the best been allotted 
to a small minority. The following lines are from 
Shakspeare, — 

"And those eyes, the break of day, 
Lights that do mislead the morn." 

Perfect beauty, Balzac thinks, is generally allied with 
coldness and silliness. She carries all her beauty in her 
face, is Bulwer's. Fine shapes will ever be the fashion 
where she is, is Richardson's. Brunettes last, says 
George Meredith, which suggests Virgil's line, — "The 
white privets fall, the dark hyacinths are plucked." 
Anything is most beautiful without ornament, says the 
rugged Walt Whitman. Fashion makes beauty for a 
time, according to Leigh Hunt. Grace, I know, cannot 
be taught and is never learned, says Sainte-Beuve; in fact, 
it would be knowing it to attempt to copy it. The oak 
has a beauty of its own, says Hare, a beauty which would 
not be improved by being spangled over with blossoms. 
The same declares the beauty of a pale face to be no beauty 
to the vulgar eye. He was familiar with her repertoire 
of glances, is Blanche Howard's. One hair of a woman 
can draw more than a hundred pairs of oxen, declares 
James Howell. Hers was a beauty destined to last, 
wrote Rousseau, because it was more in the expression 
than in the features. Words, he thought, spoiled the 
beauty of the thing he saw, is from Tolstoy. This artless 
creature, writes Mme. D'Arblay, with too much beauty 
to escape notice, has too much sensibility to be indiffer- 
ent to it. According to Balzac's notion, the beauty of a 
woman's shoulders is the last to leave her. Lamb and 
Keats agreed that Newton had destroyed all the beauty 



30 LITERARY BREVITIES 

of the rainbow by reducing it to the prismatic colors. 
The following selection is from Lowell's Dandelion, — 

"Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold." 

Handsome is who handsome does, seems to be relegated 
to anonymity. You cannot place a patch where it does 
not hide a beauty, is from The Spectator. Little men 
are pretty, but not handsome, declares Aristotle. He 
knows not love who has not seen her eyes, is Petrarch's. 
This is Pope's line, — "And beauty draws us with a single 
hair." Her loveliness, writes Trollope, was like that of 
many landscapes, which require to be often seen to be 
fully enjoyed. Two-thirds of human beauty, George 
Moore thinks* is the illumination of matter by intelli- 
gence, and but one-third proportion and delicacy of line. 
Nothing is beautiful but what is natural, says Boileau. 
Bulwer pronounces pity in a woman to be a great beauti- 
fier. According to the proverb, the crows think their own 
young ones fair. 

BELIEF 

NOTHING is so firmly believed, observes Montaigne, 
as what we least know. According to an old 
Eastern proverb, the human mind is like a leech; it never 
lets go with its tail till it has taken hold somewhere else 
with its head. It is a statement of William James, that 
the most interesting and valuable things about a man are 
his ideals and over-beliefs. It is for us to believe in the 
rule, not in the exception, remarks Emerson. Lamb 
characterized a certain man as one who believed nothing 
unless it was as clear as the three sides of a triangle. 
Balzac is authority for the statement, that conviction is 
human will come to its full strength. Dr. Johnson for a 



BIOGRAPHY 31 

long time refused to believe that the Lisbon earthquake 
had really taken place. 

BENEFITS 

THERE is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the 
fingers, says Seneca. Again the same, — "It 
comes too late that comes for the asking"; "New appe- 
tites deface old kindnesses"; and "The greatest benefits 
of all have no witnesses, but lie concealed in the con- 
science." God alone, declares Balzac, has the right to 
know our good deeds. 

BIOGRAPHY 

IT is not known just when or where Columbus was 
born; he died in the belief that he had reached 
India. Edward II, like Charles I and George III, had 
no marked vices. John Bunyan was imprisoned, after a 
fashion, for twelve years. Homer, as Symonds asserts, 
remains forever lost, like Shakspeare, in the creations of 
his own imagination; instead of the man Homer, we 
have the Achilles and the Odysseus, whom he made im- 
mortal. The first house Franklin slept in after reaching 
Philadelphia, was a Quaker meeting-house; he had entered 
it almost involuntarily with the people who were throng- 
ing to it, and, feeling drowsy, fell asleep there. Franklin 
was once entertained by David Hume in Edinburgh. 
Picardy was the birthplace of both Robespierre and 
Calvin. Chaucer, Burns, Lamb, and Hawthorne were 
all custom-house officers. The Greek philosopher Hippias 
made his own clothes. Marsyas, for dreaming that he 
had killed Dionysius, was ordered by the latter to be 
killed. It was the learned Roman Varro who made the 



32 LITERARY BREVITIES 

rule that guests should be neither fewer than the Graces, 
nor more than the Muses. The reply Lafayette made to 
Henry Clay, when the latter received him in the name of 
the nation, is said to have been written by Clay himself. 
As a biography, Lockhart's "Life of Scott" is conceded to 
be outranked only by Boswell's Johnson. Macaulay calls 
Sidney Smith "the Smith of Smiths." Addison, it has 
been declared, bore no rival and endured none but flat- 
terers. The great Roman authors were mostly not born 
at Rome. It is related of Lord Oxford, an incapable 
minister of government, that everything he went to tell 
you was in the epic way, for he always began in the middle. 
Cromwell was a bad speaker and a worse writer; Milton 
wrote his despatches for him. Almost nothing is known 
of the lives of Homer and Pindar, and very little of those of 
Shakspeare and Jesus. Our greatest poets — Chaucer, 
Spenser, Shakspeare, and Wordsworth, Burrell ranks 
among the sanest of men. Scott, Goethe, and Cuvier all 
died in 1832. Macaulay was the first literary man to be 
made a peer of the House of Lords. Shakspeare, who has 
told us most about ourselves, remarks Burrell, whose genius 
has made the whole civilized world kin, has told us nothing 
about himself. Homer had but one servant, Plato three, 
and Zeno had none at all. Beranger was said to be capable 
of saying a foolish thing for the sake of being clever. 
The poet Longfellow, when in college, used to sing in the 
Brunswick Unitarian choir. iEschylus fought with 
distinguished bravery at both Marathon and Salamis. 
Sir Philip Sidney was the pet of Queen Elizabeth, who 
called him her Philip as opposed to her sister's husband, 
Philip II of Spain. Sidney made himself familiar with 
the whole range of the arts and sciences. His "Arcadia" 
and "Defense of Poesy" give him an enduring place 
among men of letters, the latter in particular being con- 



BIOGRAPHY 33 

spicuous for originality and grace, the source from which 
hundreds have drawn thought and inspiration. In person 
he was extremely beautiful, and though of a beauty de- 
cidedly feminine, he was a soldier of rare courage, com- 
bining the gentle and the brave in an extraordinary 
manner. He has been called, in many respects, the Mar- 
cellus and the Maecenas of the English nation. Some one 
has wished we had more biographies of obscure persons. 
When Scott and Byron were at the height of their fame, 
some one remarked concerning them, that great poets 
formerly were blind, but now they are lame. Frederick 
the Great once found a crowd intently reading a scurrilous 
placard against himself; it had been posted high; he 
ordered it put lower so that it might be more easily read. 
Five hundred people were wont to assemble each day to 
see Louis XIV get up and go to bed. Sterne's dead body 
was sold by his landlady to defray his lodgings. Emerson 
saw the Duke of Wellington at Westminster Abbey, at 
the funeral of Wilberforce. Galileo died in 1642, the year 
Newton was born. Goethe was present as a spectator at 
the battle of Valmy. Jeremy Taylor was at college with 
Cromwell, George Herbert, and Milton. Milton was 
eight years old when Shakspeare died. Florence is the 
birth-place of Michelangelo, Dante, Petrarch, Galileo, 
and Boccaccio. Sir Isaac Newton was, like Kepler, a 
posthumous child. Newton was a member of the first 
parliament of William III. Franklin received the degree 
of LL. D. from the University of St. Andrews. Noah 
was once drunk, indeed, but once he built the ark, observes 
Mrs. Browning. Steele, in 1711, pronounced Louis XIV 
and Peter the Great the two greatest men then in Europe. 
At the time of his death, Richard III was only thirty-three 
years old. Gadsden, on June 14, 1774, wrote from Caro- 
lina to the Boston people, "Don't pay for an ounce of 



34 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the d d tea." Queen Anne was the last English 

monarch to attend the debates in the House of Lords, 
or to preside at a meeting of ministers. Washington and 
Lincoln were both land surveyors. The robber Procrustes 
had a bed on which he requested his victims to lie, in 
pretended hospitality; those too short he pulled out; 
those too long he chopped off. Alaric was buried under 
the stream Busentinus. Knightly, one of the would-be 
assassins of William III, tried to escape in the attire of a 
woman. Scott was disappointed at finding the Cliff of 
Dover so low, but found the Tarpeian Rock of less height. 
Of the distinguished group of Concord literary men, 
Thoreau was the only native of the place. Burke was 
reputed to be as unable to cast up a tailor's bill as Sheridan 
was to pay it. Some suspected Burke of being the author 
of the " Letters of Junius." Burke and Goldsmith were 
contemporaries at Dublin University. Henry VII called 
Saturday his lucky day. Queen Elizabeth, who died in 
1603, at the age of seventy, had reigned forty-four years. 
Bayard Taylor, like Cooper, had trouble with his neighbors 
who wished to open a street through his fine grounds. 
In order to be allowed passage with Commodore Perry 
on his expedition to Japan, Bayard Taylor was enlisted 
as a master's mate. Swift did not think Alexander the 
Great was poisoned. Neither Gibbon nor Grote was a 
university-bred man. Bacon left Cambridge without a 
degree. Flaxman is of the opinion that Achilles was the 
handsomest man that went to Troy. Sir Thomas Browne 
points out the fact, that twenty-four names make up the 
first story before the flood. Henry van Dyke thinks 
autobiography is usually a man's view of what his biog- 
raphy ought to be. Victor Hugo remarked upon the fact, 
that the year 1847 began and ended on Friday. Victor 
Hugo and Dumas were pall-bearers at the funeral of 



BLUNDERS 35 

Balzac. Of the thirty-three years of our Saviour's life, 
only nine are known. It was Marcus Curtius who leaped 
into the chasm in the Roman forum. George Sand was 
the grand-daughter of Marechal Saxe. Shakspeare and 
Cervantes both died on April 23, 1616. Chaucer, who 
died in 1400, was acquainted with Petrarch. Lessing 
was, for a time, secretary to Frederick the Great. Em- 
press Eugenie was De Lesseps's cousin. There have been 
many Diogeneses and many Timons, declares Sir Thomas 
Browne, though but few of that name. When Elizabeth 
visited Oxford, to a Greek oration made to her she re- 
sponded in the Greek language. Once, at the Enfield 
chase, Elizabeth had the honor of cutting the buck's 
throat. When imprisoned in the Tower and expecting 
to be beheaded, Elizabeth requested that the instrument 
to be used in her execution might be a sword, after the 
French manner, and not an axe, after the English method. 
Cicero never speaks of his mother in any of his writings. 

BLUNDERS 

THE Cologne Gazette, contained an advertisement of a 
German who prided himself on his correct English, 
soliciting English boarders; the closing sentence read, 
"The diet is notorious and unlimited." It was an erratum 
in an English paper, which announced that a certain man 
had abjured the errors of the Romish Church and em- 
braced those of Protestantism. A single sentence may 
undo a man. Brignoli once caused merriment in a 
Western theater by announcing, by way of an apology 
for her absence, "Madam Nilsson is a leetle horse." In 
the stage directions it read, "Enter a king and two fiddlers 
solus." Mrs. Browning speaks jocosely of her mistake 
in confounding Constantine with Constantius. An Irish- 



36 LITERARY BREVITIES 

man thought the moon of more value than the sun, be- 
cause the moon shines by night when we need it, while 
the sun shines by day when we don't need it. It was 
Monsieur Jourdain who was surprised to find he had talked 
prose all his life without knowing it. The judge of a 
French court said to the accused in giving sentence, 
"Your head will be cut off; let this be a lesson to you." 
The Duke of Wellington, being told that he should not 
say "Jacobus," but "Jacobus," blundered again by say- 
ing "Carolus" instead of "Carolus." When Queen Vic- 
toria was at Balmoral, an old Scotch preacher of the 
place prayed for her in the following manner, "O Lord, 
as she grows to be an old woman make her a new man." 
The lawyer of over-cautious statement, upon seeing the 
Siamese Twins, remarked, "Brothers, I suppose." Pro- 
fessor Felton, having occasion to reprimand his brother, 
a student, for swearing, was told by the young man that 
he was not addicted to profanity; whereupon the pro- 
fessor exclaimed in a tone of severe reproof, "Damnation, 
John, how often have I told you the word is 'profaneness,' 
and not 'profanity/ " A certain good parson, in his desire 
to be moderate in expression, prayed that the Lord might 
lead his people in the safe middle path between right and 
wrong. Macaulay refers to Thomas Nugent, Chief Jus- 
tice of the King's Bench, as a man who never distinguished 
himself except by his brogue and his blunders. I hardly 
remember, says Justin McCarthy, in my practical ob- 
servation of politics, a great public question of which 
Charles Kingsley did not take the wrong side. Thales 
fell into a well as he was looking up to the stars. I think 
the devil was in it the other day, remarked Swift, that I 
should talk to her of an ugly squinting cousin of hers, and 
the poor lady herself, you know, squints like a dragon. 
Only those who do nothing at all never make any mis- 



BOOKS 37 

take, remarks Balzac. A member of the House of 
Commons, in a famous speech, delivered himself in this 
manner, "I am always hearing about Posterity; I should 
very much like to know what Posterity has ever done for 
the country." Speaking of a certain woman, Balzac 
said she afforded an example of the mischief that may be 
done by the purest goodness for lack of intelligence. An 
Irish bishop thought "Gulliver's Travels" contained im- 
probabilities. Napoleon, while claiming never to have 
committed crimes, said he had done worse, he had com- 
mitted blunders. Jefferson observes, that Washington 
erred as other men do, but erred with integrity. Presi- 
dent Taylor's inaugural contained this remarkable sen- 
tence, — "We are at peace with all the nations of the 
world and the rest of mankind." A famous lapsus 
linguae was that committed by President Van Buren. 
Once when receiving the Diplomatic Corps he addressed 
them as the "Democratic" Corps. It was a criticism of 
the Jansenist translation of the Bible, that the scandal 
of the text was preserved in all its purity. Addison 
quotes the following from somewhere, — "We are always 
doing something for posterity, but I would fain see pos- 
terity do something for us." The darkey prayed that 
"we might grow up befo' de Lord, and be made meat for 
de kingdom o' heaven." 

BOOKS 

P ORSON boasted, that he possessed more bad copies 
of good books than any private gentleman in Eng- 
land. Scott was proud of possessing a good competent 
share of such reading as is little read. Stick to the great 
books, says Blackie. The three books that were sure to 
be found on the table of an early settler of Australia were 



38 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the Bible, Shakspeare, and Macaulay's Essays. The true 
university of these days, says Carlyle, is a collection of 
books. It is sometimes to the disadvantage of a book to 
be praised too much. The younger Pliny affirmed, that 
he never read a book so bad but he drew some profit from 
it. Only those books come down, Emerson declares, 
which deserve to last. Rousseau was an insatiable reader, 
says Landor. Seneca would suppress Homer, and cast 
Virgil and Livy out of all libraries. Wordsworth, who 
disparaged Goethe, cared little for books. There are books 
we never think it worth while to read until we find some 
favorite author praising them. The first book Hawthorne 
bought with his own money was Spenser's "Faerie 
Queene." Both Emerson and George Eliot thought 
Rousseau's "Confessions" the most entertaining book 
they had ever read. The first circulating library in 
America was the outgrowth of a club called The Junto, 
established by Franklin in Philadelphia. This is a line 
from Milton, — "Deep versed in books, but shallow in 
himself." This from Shakspeare, — 

" — Volumes that 
I prize above my dukedom." 

Montaigne's library contained only 1,000 volumes. John 
Bright read but few books, chief among them being the 
Bible; but he was master of those he read; he thought 
either the Bible or Shakspeare enough for a statesman. 
If one book tires me, remarks Montaigne, I take another, 
and yield myself to it only in those hours when the tedium 
of doing nothing descends upon me. 



BULLS 39 



BORES 



SOCIAL success, in the opinion of Frances Little, is 
the infinite capacity of being bored. There's no bore 
like a secret, says George Meredith. Sidney Smith and 
Walter Scott were known to acknowledge that they 
never met a bore. A bore that is periodical gets a friendly 
face at last and we miss it on the whole, Lowell thought. 
Sophocles declares, what is obvious enough, that the man 
who takes delight in always talking is irksome to his friends 
and does not know it. I should have been immensely 
bored, some one has observed, if I had not been there 
myself. 

BULLS 

THE following notice was attached to one of the show- 
cases in an exhibition in India, — "All goods in 
this case are for sale, but they cannot be removed until 
after the day of judgment." An Irish legislator wished 
to say "a few words before I begin." The Englishman 
discovered in Paris, that although the French had no 
bread, they had a substitute called pain which answered 
the same purpose. Who was it that said, "To have no 
children is great misfortune, but it is hereditary in some 
families"? The Frenchman was "much displeased" at 
the news of his father's death. It was a Kircaldy elector 
who said, — "We will have a religious man to represent 
us, if we have to go to hell to find him." A Spanish judge, 
avers John Hay, announces to a murderer his sentence 
of death with the sacramental wish of length of days. 



40 LITERARY BREVITIES 

CANDOR 

JOHN KEMBLE, the English actor, would correct 
errors of speech in anyone. Once George III re- 
marked, that it would "obleege" him if Kemble 
would take snuff from his royal snuff-box; upon which 
Kemble said, "It would become your royal mouth better 
to say 'oblige.' " Jenny Lind once sat next to Thackeray 
at dinner, and in conversation with him confessed that 
she had not read a line of his writings. Dr. Arnold was 
always ready to confess his ignorance. It was said of 
Arnold, that he woke every morning with the impression 
that everything was an open question. Bacon believes 
that all persons speak more virtuously than they either 
think or act. 

CARE 

NEW times demand new cares, Racine believes. It 
is impossible, observes Fielding, to be particular 
without being tedious. Suspense in news is torture, 
remarks Milton. He who owns soil has war and toil, 
says Balzac. It is the observation of some one, that 
certain people might be better for a little neglect. 



i 



CHANCE 

T is a saying of George Eliot, that nobody's luck is 
pulled by one string. From Spenser we have this, — 

"For he that once hath missed the right way, 
The further he doth go, the further he doth stray." 



It is a saying of Thackeray, that the blows which wound 
most are those which never are aimed. It is one attrac- 
tion of American life, T. W. Higginson observes, that it 



CHARACTER 41 

affords an endless lottery, and we never can tell what lies 
at the other end of any person's career. This line is 
from Sophocles, — "Know, then, thou walk'st on fortune's 
razor edge." May Sinclair says, "For pure, delightful 
unexpectedness, give me a parquet floor." 

CHARACTER 

I AM a human being, said Terence, and nothing human 
is alien to me. According to Weir Mitchell, nothing 
but high character, implicitly believed in by the people, 
ever pulled Washington through the gigantic difficulties of 
our glorious Revolution. There is no wise or good man, 
thinks Jeremy Taylor, that would change persons or con- 
ditions entirely with any man in the world. Men have 
a singular desire to be good, says Thoreau, without being 
good for anything. It is a saying of Marcus Aurelius, 
that such as are our habitual thoughts, such also will be 
the character of our minds, for the mind is dyed by the 
thoughts. Browning speaks of a snow white soul that 
angels fear to take untenderly. There is a weak spot in 
every man, and if you look long enough for it you will 
find it. Much that is choicest and most delightful in 
literature has been written by authors who were anything 
but agreeable to their contemporaries. An enclosed two- 
cent stamp gives a man a character. Be sure of this at 
least, observes Lowell, that you are dreadfully like other 
people. Some one has remarked, that Emerson loved 
good and Caylyle hated evil. When a man commences by 
acting a character, says Scott, he frequently ends by 
adopting it in good earnest. Thomas a Becket proved to 
be altogether different from what Henry II thought him 
to be. There are moments of delirium, says Rousseau, 
when men ought not to be judged by their actions. If a 



42 LITERARY BREVITIES 

man is not great enough to be painted as he is, observes 
Channing, he had better not be painted at all. It is an 
old proverb, that the man who would bring home the 
wealth of the Indies, must carry out the wealth of the 
Indies. Linen detects its own dirtiness, observes Dr. 
Johnson. Perhaps if we knew the occasional thoughts 
of our best friends, we should despise them. Addison 
promised never to draw a faulty character which would 
not fit at least a thousand people. These lines are from 
Goethe, — 

"Talents are nurtured best in solitude, 
A character on life's tempestuous sea." 

The same author declares, that the history of every man 
paints his own character. Le Sage tells of those whose 
characters stand higher than their principles. Chaucer, 
who tells of the unreasonableness of expecting clean sheep 
when they have a foul shepherd, asks, "If gold rust, what 
should iron do?" Joubert thought Voltaire had a moral 
sense in ruins. It is the view of Horace, that by crossing 
the sea men have a change of sky, but not of character. 
In general, observes Thucydides, the dishonest more 
easily gain merit for cleverness than the simple for good- 
ness, since men take pride in the one, but are ashamed 
of the other. A physiognomist found in Socrates's face 
and the general formation of his head indications of bad 
passions and depraved character. The great philosopher 
and moralist confessed the correctness of the judgment, 
but claimed that by self-discipline he had thwarted the 
tendencies of his depraved nature. The Roman character 
was greatly due to well regulated family life. Gladstone 
confessed that he was a boy with a great absence of 
goodness. A character, says Novalis, is a completely 
fashioned will. Tasso's suggestive line is, — "Yet still 



CHARACTER 43 

my hell within myself I bear." Milton seems to have 
paraphrased this in, "myself am hell." Chesterfield ad- 
vises, that we observe carefully what pleases or displeases 
us in others, since the same thing will please or displease 
others in us. Balzac observes, that most men have 
inequalities of character which produce discord; one man 
is honorable and diligent; another kindly but obstinate; 
this one loves his wife, yet his will is arbitrary and uncer- 
tain; that other, preoccupied by ambition, pays off his 
affections as he would a debt, bestows the luxuries of 
wealth, but deprives the daily life of happiness, — in 
short, the average man of social life is essentially incom- 
plete, without being signally to blame. Scott asserts, that 
an efficient bore must have something respectable about 
him, otherwise no one would permit him to exercise his 
occupation. A disregard of custom and decency, says 
Gibbon, always shows a weak and ill-regulated mind. 
Richardson asserts, that every fortified town has its strong 
and its weak place. Poe pronounces Tennyson the noblest 
poet that ever lived, so little of the earth earthy. Persons 
living side by side may practically belong to different ages, 
says C. C. Everett. As observed by Balzac, there are 
men who can never be replaced. La Fontaine is declared 
by Macaulay to have been a mere simpleton in society. 
There are depths in man that go to lowest hell; as there 
are heights that reach highest heaven, according to 
Carlyle. That the bread should be good, says Amiel, it 
must have leaven; but the leaven is not the bread. Some 
one has thought it better to leave the first two syllables 
out of the word gentleman than the last. The purer the 
golden vessel, says Richter, the more easily is it bent. 
Goldsmith says Johnson had nothing of the bear about 
him but the skin. John Morley sees in a habitually irreso- 
lute man one capable of clinging to a policy or conviction 



44 LITERARY BREVITIES 

to which he has once been driven by dire stress of cir- 
cumstances. Chesterton thinks Browning had one great 
requirement of a poet — that of not being difficult to 
please. It has been stated, that Browning did not dislike 
spiritualism but spiritualists. Philip of Macedon, having 
been asked to banish a man for speaking ill of him, said 
it was better he should speak where they were both known 
than where they were both unknown. Character is capital, 
says May Sinclair. It was Dr. Johnson's belief, that a 
man will please more upon the whole by negative qualities 
than by positive. As expressed by George Meredith, a 
good character goes on compound-interesting. Bulwer 
asserts, that the iron out of which true manhood is forged 
is the power to resist. From Dry den is the following, — 

"Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
Was everything by starts, and nothing long." 

It has been observed, that we shall never pour anything 
from that which is empty. Thomas Bailey Aldrich has 

this, — 

"They never crowned him, never knew his worth, 

But let him go unlaureled to his grave." 

According to Wieland's judgment, Klopstock is the most 
poetical, Herder the most scholarly, Lavater the most 
Christian, and Goethe the most human of men. Edwin 
Booth said there was no door in his theater through which 
God could not see. Jeremy Taylor was wont to say, on 
seeing some bad men pass by, — "There goes my wicked 
self." Some one has remarked, that those who are 
worst to set wrong are also worst to set right. It is 
Lavater's observation, that you do not know a man until 
you have divided an estate with him. It is the belief of 
Bacon, that a little folly in a very wise man, a small slip 
in a very good man, and a little indecency in a polite 



CHARACTER 45 

and elegant man, greatly diminish their characters and 
reputations. A cipher, observes Balzac, though it be 
never so large, traced in gold or written in chalk, will 
never be anything but a cipher. Kate Douglas Wiggin 
makes one of her characters say of a certain clergyman, — 
"He was so busy bein' a minister, he never got round to 
bein' a human creeter." There is no damning a devil, 
says Balzac. It is a providential arrangement that, after 
fifty, one hates improvements, thinks Lowell. It is noted 
by Bacon, that a man's temper is never well known until 
he is crossed. The man who is ready to pay you anything 
you ask, says Balzac, will pay you nothing. One must 
be something, observes Goethe, in order to do something. 
Henry James, in criticising George Eliot, thinks Adam 
Bede lacks that supreme quality without which a man can 
never be interesting, — the capacity to be tempted. Cato 
the elder was called "the biter"; Persephone was afraid 
even to admit him into Hades after death. One of Scott's 
lawyers thought it the pest oi nis profession, that lawyers 
seldom see the best side of human nature. In girls we 
love what they are, says Goethe, but in young men what 
they promise to be. One of Thackeray's characters com- 
plains, that his poor mother was so perfect that she never 
could forgive him for being otherwise. Evil tongues 
never want a whet, says Le Sage. Worth makes the man, 
and want of it the fellow, is a line from Pope. If the 
balance exist, declares William James, no one faculty can 
possibly be too strong — we only get the stronger all-round 
character. One solitary philosopher may be great, vir- 
tuous, and happy in the midst of poverty, says Isaac 
Iselin, but not a whole nation. It has been remarked, 
that every man has his Achilles' heel. Some one has 
observed, that it is a painful thing to admit that so many 
good people are uninteresting and so many interesting 



46 LITERARY BREVITIES 

people are not good. Bulwer's Richelieu enjoins us to 
leave patience to the saints, for he is human. The same 
reminds us, that we are not holier than humanity. King 
John of England, one of the meanest sovereigns in all 
history, had a decided literary taste, and read ravenously 
books of a high order. One of the most despicable things 
he did was, in traversing England from the Isle of Wight, 
every morning to set fire to the house that had sheltered 
him the previous night. A contemporary historian said, 
after John's death, that hell felt itself disgraced by his 
presence. No man, affirms Price Collier, could hold a 
position of supreme public trust in America whose private 
life has been of the character of the male sovereigns of 
England, for a hundred years. We are assured, that strong 
men can remake their lives. Benson thinks resolutions do 
little but reveal one's weakness more patently. A good 
face has been called a letter of recommendation. Addi- 
son thinks nothing so modish as an agreeable neglience. 
The same says mere bashfulness without merit is awk- 
ward; and merit without modesty is insolent. Men with 
red hair are said to be very good or very bad. Pascal 
thinks it delightful, when one expects to see an author 
to find a man. 

CHARITY 

WHO gives quickly, gives twice, says the proverb; 
this is, however, susceptible of a double inter- 
pretation. The day before marriage, observes Beacons- 
field, and the hour before death, is when a man thinks 
least of his purse and most of his neighbor. When thou 
eatest, remarks Zoroaster, give something to the dogs, 
even though they should bite you. His dews fall every- 
where, is a sentiment from Shakspeare. Of Judge 
Samuel Hoar, Emerson wrote, — 



CHILDHOOD 47 

"July was in his sunny heart, 
October in his liberal hands." 

In poor families, Balzac remarks, a gift always takes 
the form of something useful. In the time of the famine, 
America took the guns from her battleships to load them 
fuller with grain for the starving Irish peasants. It was 
said of St. Francis, that he remembered those whom God 
had forgotten. One does not always lose what one gives 
away, Goethe observes. 



i 



CHEERFULNESS 

T is Cowper who speaks of 



" — the cups 
That cheer but not inebriate." 



So Shakspeare, — 

"A merry heart goes all the day, 3 
Your sad tires in a mile-a. " 

It is asserted by William James, that the history of our 
own race is one long commentary on the cheerfulness 
that comes with fighting ills. 

CHILDHOOD 

FROM Wordsworth we have both "The child is father 
to the man," and "Heaven lies about us in our 
infancy." George Eliot observes, that childhood has no 
forebodings. This from Milton, — 

"The childhood shows the man 
As morning shows the day." 

Beaconsfield speaks of one who involuntarily reminds you 
of youth as an empty orchestra does of music. In Ger- 



48 LITERARY BREVITIES 

many, in early times, Santa Claus was accompanied by a 
sinister form called Klaubauf; Santa Claus came with a 
great collection of gifts for good children, but Klaubauf 
with a basket to carry off the children who had been 
naughty. Victor Hugo describes Paradise as a place 
where the parents are always young and the children 
always little. Some one states, that a hundred years ago 
a son addressed his father as "Sir"; to-day he calls him 
"Dad." August of Poland, known as "August the 
Physically Strong," was the father of three hundred and 
fifty-four children. Where children are, says Novalis, 
there is the golden age. Thackeray says of his childhood 
days, "As I recall them, the roses bloom again and the 
nightingales sing by the calm Bendemeer." Sarah Orne 
Jewett says we never get over being a child so long as 
we have a mother to go to. 

CIVILIZATION 

THE accidental finding of Justinian's Pandects, 
about 1130, in the town of Amalfi, Italy, tended 
greatly to the improvement of that dark age. Wild men 
are said to paint and carve images of animals long before 
they have learned to fry an omelet. It has been observed 
with much truth, that the savage who adopts something 
of civilization too often loses his ruder virtues without 
gaining an equivalent. Amiel asserts, that we must have 
millions of men in order to produce a few elect spirits; a 
thousand was enough in Greece. It was the belief of 
William H. Seward, that all nations must renovate their 
virtues or perish. Civilization bows to decency, says 
Browning. Hume assigns the age of William the Con- 
queror as the period when the people of Christendom were 
the lowest sunk in ignorance. The best and bravest, 



CIVILIZATION 49 

remarks Longfellow, are in advance not only of their own 
age but of every age. Hawthorne thinks the world owes 
all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. There will be 
vices as long as there are men, is a Latin sentiment. The 
population of ancient Rome has been estimated as high 
as two million. The Greeks and Romans, like the Chinese, 
did not fight duels. The lost causes, declares Dowden, 
have not always been the worst. Henry IV expressed a 
wish and indulged a hope to see the day when every 
householder in France should have a pullet for dinner 
once a week. It is a maxim by Lyman Abbott, that 
barbarians have rights which civilization is bound to 
respect; but that barbarism has no rights which civiliza- 
tion is bound to respect. In Tennyson's estimation, — 
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.' 5 
Civilization tends to render all men alike, thinks Madame 
de Stael. Minos was the first, Thucydides declares, to 
whom tradition ascribes the possession of a navy. We 
are assured by the same authority, that the Athenians 
were the first who laid aside arms and adopted an easier 
and more luxurious way of life. He likewise observes, 
that the Lacedaemonians were the first who in their 
athletic exercises stripped naked and rubbed themselves 
with oil. To speak paradoxically, observes George Eliot, 
the existence of insignificant people has very important 
consequences in the world. Thucydides mentions an 
eclipse of the sun in the summer of 437 B.C., as occurring 
at the beginning of the lunar month, apparently the only 
time when such an event is possible. States can bear 
the misfortunes of individuals, but individuals cannot 
bear the misfortunes of the state, Pericles has observed. 
Plato advised Dionysius to read the "Clouds" of Aris- 
tophanes, if he wished to understand the state of society 
in Athens. In every great discovery, Balzac thinks, 



50 LITERARY BREVITIES 

there is an element of chance. According to Emerson, 
Europe has always owed to Oriental genius its divine 
impulses. It has been wisely observed, that you ought 
not to do everything you can for people at once. Goethe 
is convinced, that a great revolution is never a fault of 
the people but of the government. Gibbon, after de- 
scribing the costliness and splendor of the Cathedral of 
St. Sophia at Constantinople, makes this significant 
remark, — "Yet how dull is the artifice, how insignificant 
is the labor, if it be compared with the formation of the 
vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple." 
Progress, it is said, brings conflict. Petrarch, in the 
fourteenth century, asserted that, except his friend Rienzi 
and one other, a stranger of the Rhone was more con- 
versant with the antiquities of Rome than the natives of 
the metropolis. Emerson observes, that an institution 
is the lengthened shadow of one man. It is an observa- 
tion of Bancroft, that the inference that there is progress 
in human affairs is warranted; that the trust of our race 
has ever been in the coming of better times. A nation is 
in a bad way when none of the people seek to get above 
the station to which they were born. Seneca tells of 
noble women who reckoned their years, not by the number 
of the consuls, but by that of their husbands. In early 
times cannibalism was practised in Scotland, a country 
which in later times produced a Hume, a Burns, a Scott, 
and a Carlyle. Gibbon pronounces the ruin of paganism 
in the age of Theodosius I to be perhaps the only example 
of the total extirpation of an ancient and popular super- 
stition. Gladiatorial combats were witnessed for the 
last time at Rome in the games of Honorius, 404 a.d. 
At the siege of Rome by the Goths in 408 a.d., mothers 
are said to have eaten their slaughtered children. A like 
occurrence is reported in connection with the siege of 



CIVILIZATION 51 

Jerusalem. In the reign of Theodoric, in Italy, it was 
safe to leave a purse of gold in the fields, so secure did the 
inhabitants feel concerning their property. Gibbon de- 
clares Boethius to have been the last of the Romans whom 
Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for his country- 
man. Until the time of Justinian the silkworm which 
feeds on the mulberry tree was confined to China. 
Caligula spent nearly ten thousand pounds sterling on a 
single supper. The extravagance of one day, observes 
Edward Everett Hale, becomes the commonplace of 
another. Every age has its characteristic virtues, no age 
having a monopoly of them; today there is more phi- 
lanthropy than formerly, but less hospitality. In what 
civilization of the past would one choose to live? The 
Mexicans and Peruvians acquired a respectable degree 
of civilization without either money or iron. Gibbon 
thinks the proudest and most perfect separation which 
can be found, in any age or country, between the nobles 
and the people, is perhaps that of the Patricians and the 
Plebeians, as it was established in the first age of the 
Roman republic. Justin McCarthy is of the opinion, that 
we seldom have any political reform without a previous 
explosion. In revolutionary times it is quite as dangerous 
to employ honest men as scoundrels, Balzac thinks. 
Revolution, observes McCarthy, is like an epidemic; it 
finds out the weak places in a system. The fourteenth 
and the fifteenth centuries constitute the period of Euro- 
pean history known as the Renaissance. The ancient 
Peruvians used gold, silver, lead, and copper, but not 
iron. They had fine buildings, fine roads, arms, agri- 
cultural implements, and vases, but had no system of 
writing. Doubts keep pace with discoveries, Landor 
observes. No man is a pirate, thinks Coleridge, unless 
his contemporaries agree to call him so. Savages have 



52 LITERARY BREVITIES 

been found among the South Sea islanders so uncivilized 
that they did not know enough to tell a lie. The native 
Australians cut off the right thumb of a slain enemy, 
that his ghost might not be able to draw the bow. The 
Athenians, when fortifying Pylos, having no hods, used 
their hands held behind them to prevent the mortar from 
falling off. Every man begins in the world afresh, says 
Amiel, and not one fault of the first man has been avoided 
by his remotest descendant. The Greeks, as well as the 
Apostles, practised the drawing of lots. The long pointed 
shoes of the time of William Rufus, though severely de- 
nounced by the ecclesiastics, were in vogue for a long time; 
the very opposition to them seemed to continue them in 
use. A belief in the world's improvability is a mistake, 
Hawthorne affirms, into which men seldom fall twice. 
The kings of Dahomey often killed victims to carry mes- 
sages to the other world, as well as to supply deceased 
kings with servants. We are told that at the beginning 
of the fight under Dundee, Lochiel took off what was 
probably the only pair of shoes in his clan, and charged 
barefoot. Aristophanes applaudingly refers to "the 
good old times," when an Athenian sailor knew just enough 
to call for his barley cake and cry "yo ho." Pontiff 
Sixtus V poisoned out a band of robbers among the 
Apennines, by sending a train of poisoned food to be 
captured by the unsuspecting bandits. Rumbold, who 
was executed in the reign of James II, said, just before his 
death, that he never would believe that Providence had 
sent a few men into the world booted and spurred to ride, 
and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. 
Macaulay observes, that in revolutions men live fast; 
the experience of years is crowded into hours; old habits 
of thought and action are violently broken; and novelties 
which at first inspire dread and disgust become in a 



CIVILIZATION 53 

few days familiar, endurable, attractive. We have among 
us forms of wrong and bondage, unseen by us and toler- 
ated by religion, which will be clear to the more enlightened 
conscience of the future, just as we look upon intemperance 
and slavery not as they were regarded centuries ago. 
Torturing of prisoners to make them confess crime was 
common in the time of James I of England. Com- 
munism, declares Lyman Abbott, in all its forms, assumes 
in man a virtue he does not possess. A Spartan man was 
not allowed to marry until he was thirty. Jefferson was 
the first to introduce the threshing machine which may 
be operated by horse-power. Carlyle declares the genu- 
ine use of gun-powder to be, that it makes all men alike 
tall. We are so slow to accept what is new, that it seems 
necessary for reformers to exaggerate the exclusive excel- 
lence of their discoveries. Want is the necessary stimulus 
of civilization. The Chaonians were acorn-fed. Accord- 
ing to Diodorus Siculus, ale is an older beverage than 
wine. In fruitful Hindostan they have yearly three 
harvests and a famine. At one time eight hundred men 
were employed in lighting St. Peter's. In African audi- 
ences hisses mean what applause means with us. The 
Dutch used to cut down most of the precious trees in the 
Spice Islands, in order to raise the price of what remained. 
Black-balling at Sparta was indicated by putting in a 
flat dough-ball. The law of Japan compels a man, when 
he fells a tree, to plant another. The emperor Carinus 
in a few months married and divorced nine wives. The 
barbaric invasions of Europe saved it from the doom of 
a stationary civilization of a low order, such as has held 
China down. When the Royal Society of London, in 
1752, introduced the Gregorian calendar, some of its 
members were pursued by a mob, who believed they had 
been robbed of eleven days of their lives. It is the belief 



54 LITERARY BREVITIES 

of Balzac, that the advancement in society must be 
wrought out in the advancement of the individual. The 
Vandalic leaders were wont to debate everything twice — 
once when drunk and again when sober; when drunk, 
that they might debate with vigor, when sober, that they 
might debate with discretion. Father Newman thought 
the world simply tossing, not progressing. Some one has 
made French civilization consist of a cafe and a theater. 
Voltaire says Peter the Great civilized his subjects, and 
yet himself remained a barbarian. No sun ever rises 
without a preliminary, twilight, says Hare. Hare regards 
the Elizabethan age, continuing to the end of the reign of 
James I, as the most brilliant age in the history of the 
human mind. Lamb calls the Jews a piece of stubborn 
antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its 
nonage. It was Swift who lauded the benefactions of the 
man who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew 
before. Turgenieff describes a certain man as one who 
does not possess those faults which are necessary to make 
him a great writer. It would be absurd, thinks William 
James, to affirm that one's own age of the world can be 
beyond correction by the next age. At the beginning of 
the sixteenth century spice was a prime necessity of 
life; there were then, in general, no green vegetables. It 
is Victor Hugo's belief, that the French Revolution is 
the greatest step taken by the human race since Christ. 
Napoleon, when he took refuge with the English, saw for 
the first time a steamboat in motion. Von Humboldt 
observes, that savages look far more like one another than 
civilized men do. No merely agricultural people has ever 
produced a literature, T. N. Page affirms. According to 
Herodotus, the Lydians were the first to coin money of 
gold and silver. Edward Everett Hale's father, in 1804, 
was twelve days going from New York to Troy in a pas-. 



CLEANLINESS 55 

senger sloop; it is a tradition in the Hale family, that 
while on the passage he read through Gibbon's "Decline 
and Fall." Victor Hugo calls the solitary man a modified 
savage, accepted by civilization. Every town, like every 
man, has its own countenance, Hans Christian Andersen 
thinks. It is Hume's observation, that one generation 
does not go off the stage at once, and another succeed; 
that in this everlasting continuity lies the guarantee of 
the existence of civilization. 

CLASSICS 

ACCORDING to Justin McCarthy's idea, to be a 
classic means only to be independent of actual 
date, and to find new readers in every generation. Sainte- 
Beuve thinks a classic, as generally understood, is an 
ancient author, already consecrated by admiration, and 
an authority in its own class. The Dictionary of the 
French Academy of 1835 defines classic authors as those 
who have become models in any language. Under the 
name of classics Sainte-Beuve would put for France, in 
the first instance, Corneille, then Moliere, "the most com- 
plete, the fullest poetical genius we have had in France." 
Arlo Bates says there are certain writings which, amid 
all the changes of custom, belief, and taste, have continu- 
ally pleased and moved mankind, — and to these we give 
the name classics. 

CLEANLINESS 

WE cannot all be clever, but we can all be clean, 
is the belief of G. W. E. Russell. Give me health 
and a day, writes Emerson, and I will make the pomp of 
emperors ridiculous. A Frenchman may be clean, again 
Emerson says, an Englishman is conscientiously clean. 



56 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Balzac speaks of a man whose hands are of the kind that 
look dirty after washing. 

COMPOSITION 

GOETHE declares, that to write prose one must have 
something to say. Balzac wrote and published 
forty volumes before he could write one to which he was 
willing to put his name; this book was "Les Chouans," 
and it proved to be the turning point in Balzac's literary 
career. The great secret of how to write well, according 
to Pope, is to know thoroughly what one writes about, 
and not to be affected. Hawthorne never used italics in 
his writings. Scribebat carmina maiore cur a quam ingenio, 
is from the younger Pliny. Thackeray regretted, that he 
had not enjoyed five years of reading before commencing 
his work as an author. Racine spent two whole years 
in polishing "Phedre." There have been statesmen, like 
Cromwell, who could not frame an intelligible sentence, 
Rosebery declares. Montaigne's best thoughts came to 
him, Dowden remarks, when he seemed to seek them least. 
Pascal said of his eighteenth letter, — "I would have 
made it shorter if I could have kept it longer." Goethe 
at first prepared to write a " William Tell," but turned 
the subject over to Schiller, just as Hawthorne gave 
"Evangeline" to Longfellow. Concerning the adage, sec- 
ond thoughts are best, Shenstone declares, that the third 
thought generally resolves itself into the first. La Bruyere 
thinks that for every thought there is only one right 
expression, and it must be found. Henry James says, 
"We've been awfully decent." Milton's blindness doubt- 
less helped his invention. Ten years of Balzac's life were 
sacrificed to experiments. Scott first tried a foreign field 
in "Quentin Durward." In 1827 Scott first publicly 



COMPOSITION 57 

acknowledged before three hundred gentlemen that he was 
the total and undivided author of the Waverley Novels. 
Scott found that a sleepless night sometimes furnished him 
with good ideas. Scott wrote " Ivanhoe " when he had 
a severe cramp in the stomach; he wrote his verse twice, 
sometimes three times over; his day's work was thirty 
printed pages; "Woodstock," which he wrote in three 
months, sold for forty thousand dollars. In Shakspeare's 
latest plays there is little or no rhyme. Everyone who 
affects authorship, it has been said, must overcome a 
natural distaste for the plodding labor of writing. Ennius 
never wrote poetry except when confined to the house with 
gout. It is a mistake, says Hawthorne, to try to put our 
best thoughts into human language. It is stated, that 
Virgil first arranged and wrote out the iEneid in prose. 
Lowell declares, that the only art of expression is to have 
something to express. The good writers cannot always 
write their best, observes Macaulay. Scott revised his 
manuscripts but little. How little the average reader sees 
of the art, often laboriously expended, which makes a poem 
enjoyable. Some of the beautiful things in literature are 
products of persons not professionally literary, and who 
perhaps rely for fame upon a single composition. With 
whatever talent a man may be born, says Rousseau, the 
art of writing is not easily learned. Landor thinks com- 
position may be too adorned even for beauty. Corinna 
advised Pindar to sow with the hand, and not with the 
full sack. Blessed is the man, writes George Eliot, who, 
having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy 
evidence of the fact. It has been remarked, that Jeffer- 
son wrote as many proverbs as Solomon, and was quite 
as careless in observing them. Hawthorne preferred 
writing in a small room. While at Oxford, Locke formed 
the habit of writing out, for his own eye only, his thoughts 



58 LITERARY BREVITIES 

on subjects which particularly interested him. It was a 
characteristic of Scott, that as he neared the end of one 
novel his brain caught an inspiration for the next. There 
were found in the author's hand-writing thirteen versions 
of the opening sentence of Plato's "Republic." It was 
Horace's advice not to begin with Leda's eggs in treating 
of the Trojan War. It is thought to be injurious to a 
writer to know too much of what other writers have said. 
Goethe thinks the best is not to be explained by words. 
Sophocles wrote well at ninety. Brevity, it is claimed, 
should always be subordinate to perspicuity. According 
to Professor Peck, Prescott found it an effort to write, 
and used to penalize himself for laziness. Socrates, like 
Jesus, left nothing in a literary way; Plato and Xenophon 
were his biographers. Bacon was sixty years old when he 
published his Novum Organum. This had been rewritten 
twelve times over. Before his first visit to Germany, 
Bayard Taylor made an arrangement for sending letters 
to the Tribune. Mr. Greeley told him, if his letters were 
good he should receive pay for them, but not to write 
until he knew something. Swift said he believed if he 
wrote an essay on a straw, some fool would answer it. 
Addison, in a description of Italy, first used the expression 
"classic ground." Addison was so fastidious in regard 
to his writings that he sometimes would stop the press 
to alter a preposition or a conjunction. Montaigne's 
essays are remarkable for the large number of quotations 
they contain. Browning wrote with unimpaired power 
after he was seventy. Bacon was much given to repeat- 
ing his thoughts, sayings, and characters. It is said that 
Balzac once spent a whole night toiling over a single 
sentence. The adjective has been called the great enemy 
of the substantive. Sterne's sermon on Conscience found 
no readers until it was inserted in "Tristram Shandy." It 



COMPOSITION 59 

has been observed by some one, that as soon as a grammar 
is printed in any language, that language begins to go; 
that the Greeks had no grammar when their best works 
were written. Our clever writers, observes Lessing, are 
seldom scholars, and our scholars are seldom clever writers. 
It has been remarked, that De Foe's accuracy "lies like 
truth." It was with much difficulty that De Foe found 
anyone willing to publish " Robinson Crusoe." Alfieri said 
he went to the market to learn good Italian. Steele called 
a certain elegy "prose in rhyme." Ibsen thinks it a pity 
that our best thoughts occur to our biggest blackguards. 
It is Motley's notion, that style above all other qualities 
seems to embalm for posterity. John W. Chadwick 
speaks of "writings inspired because inspiring." Joubert 
says the writers who have influence are only men who 
express perfectly what others think. It is the opinion of 
some, that Trollope's autobiography, in which his me- 
chanical way of writing is set forth, has caused his works 
to fall into neglect. Always keep pencil and paper, as 
birdlime, at the head of your bed, Lowell advises. Epi- 
curus's books contain no quotations. Wordsworth is 
accredited with commingling the ridiculous and the sub- 
lime; in a note containing the grandest thought he would 
record how he rubbed the skin off his heel by wearing a 
tight shoe. Bagehot observes, that no man can think 
to much purpose when he is studying to write a style not 
his own. The writer of genius, according to some one, is 
only he whose words pass into proverbs among his people. 
Good writing, like good company, comes from keeping 
good company, says Dr. John Brown. Lounsbury is 
authority for the statement, that there is not a single 
instance of the employment of its in Bacon's works. 
Goethe called his writings fragments of a great confes- 
sion. Professor Woodberry notes the fact that Virgil, 



60 LITERARY BREVITIES 

like all the masters of poetic speech, seldom carries his 
sentence beyond three lines. Plutarch kept his works 
constantly by him, and polished them to perfection. I 
have a fancy, remarks Lowell, that long brooding is the 
only thing that will assure us whether our eggs are chalk 
or have a winged life hidden in them. Another theory 
of Lowell's is, that invention is the faculty that ages first, 
and while the material to work in is scant; the skill 
to shape it grows. Lowell's recipe was, to carry a thing 
long in his mind. Goethe shrank from touching with 
words that which is unbearable to the feelings. Biels- 
chowsky calls Goethe the mortal enemy of empty words. 
The Comtesse de La Fayette was accustomed to say, 
that a sentence cut out of a work was worth a gold louis, 
and a word left out, twenty sous. Bossuet, in giving 
directions for writing the life of De Ranee, advises that 
simplicity ought to be the sole ornament. Emerson 
speaks of the impracticability of using the pen in one hand 
and a crowbar in the other. It was the rather unique 
theory of Emerson, that if one were to elect writing for 
his task in life, he should renounce all pretension to 
reading. Of Irving's style it has been remarked, that it 
impresses one as a whole rather than in particulars — and 
that this is the higher art. Goethe sold " Wilhelm Meister " 
to a bookseller in its incomplete state, that he might be 
obliged to deliver the manuscript within a definite period. 
Richter boasted that he had made as many books as he 
had lived years. It is Balzac's assertion, that the rhyming 
fellows come to grief when they try their hands at prose; 
that in prose you can't use words that mean nothing; 
that you absolutely must say something. With Moliere, 
with Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton, Sainte-Beuve in- 
sists, the style equals the invention, but never surpasses 
it. La Rochefoucauld rewrote some of his maxims thirty 



COMPOSITION 61 

times. Clearness has been called the varnish of masters. 
It was claimed that Boileau gave Racine the precept of 
writing the second line before the first. Pascal said of 
his critical method in writing prose, "If I write four words, 
I efface three." In the night, when an idea seized him, 
Richelieu rose and called his secretary, who wrote it down 
instantly. Bishop Percy informs us, that not a line of 
all his poems stands as he first wrote it. Herodotus, Plato, 
Aristotle, and Demosthenes were no quoters. Pythagoras 
wrote nothing. Balzac observes, that the word "dis- 
gusting " has no superlative. Matthew Arnold gives Swift 
the credit of being the first to use the expression "sweet- 
ness and light." What would the " Ancient Mariner " 
amount to, if it had been written in prose? Addison calls 
attention to the advantage a man has who writes a book 
of travels, in that he can show his parts without incurring 
any danger of being examined or contradicted. An old 
tutor advised his pupils to read over their compositions, 
and whenever they met with a passage which they thought 
to be particularly fine, to strike it out. Dr. Johnson dis- 
approved of a parenthesis. The art of writing, observes 
Lowell, consists in knowing what to leave in the ink- 
stand. Bliss Perry thinks the academic atmosphere un- 
favorable to creative vigor — that few vital books come 
out of the universities. It has been alleged that Prescott 
never wrote a sentence that can be remembered. Pope's 
servant was called from her bed four times in a single 
night to supply him with paper, lest he should lose a 
thought. According to Sterne, the ideas of an author are 
different after he has shaved from what they were before. 
George Eliot created one hundred and seven characters; 
Thackeray forty; and Dickens one hundred and two. 
Haydon calls attention to the fact, that Don Quixote 
makes a pasteboard visor, believing it strong enough for 



62 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the stroke of a giant; that he fetches a blow at it that 
smashes it to pieces; that, mortified, he fits it up again, 
consoling himself that it is strong enough now; but that 
Cervantes does not allow another blow to prove it. Hay- 
don advises a writer not to rub out in the evening of the 
day he has worked hard, if his labor should appear a 
failure. Landor once averred, that anybody who could 
write a parody ought to be shot. Carlyle would advise 
all men who can speak their thoughts, not to sing them. 
It is T. W. Higginson's judgment, that Walt Whitman 
has phrase, but not form — and that without form there 
is no immortality. In no one of Shakspeare's plays is 
there an Irish character. It was Cardinal Wolsey who 
said, Ego et Rex mens. Coleridge, in translating Schiller's 
" Wallenstein," introduced a passage not in the original; it 
was so a propos, that Schiller retranslated it into German 
with his own. Shakspeare recklessly disregarded the 
unities. Goethe obtained his best thoughts and expres- 
sions while walking. He could do nothing seated. Ac- 
cording to Macaulay, no historian with whom we are 
acquainted has shown so complete an indifference to truth 
as Livy. On the other hand, he acknowledges that we 
do not know, in the whole range of literature, an instance 
of a bad thing so well done. One characteristic of Jona- 
than Edwards as a student was, the habit of composition- 
writing as a means of mental culture. A close reasoner 
and a good writer, says Coleridge, in general may be known 
by his pertinent use of connectives; read any page of 
Johnson, he says, you cannot alter one connective without 
spoiling the sense. According to Lafcadio Hearn, some 
feelings are very difficult to develop; he will show a page 
that he worked at for months before the idea came clearly; 
when the best result comes, he says, it ought to surprise 
one, for our best work is out of the unconscious. Some one 



CONCEIT 63 

has facetiously remarked, that a novelist is better equipped 
than the most of his trade, if he knows himself and one 
woman. Stanley Hall estimates, that Huxley used over 
twenty thousand words. The word "agnostic" was of 
Huxley's coining. To distinguish between the style of 
Addison and that of Steele, according to Barrett Wendell, 
all we need do is to apply a vocal test, as Addison wrote 
more for the ear, Steele for the eye. Victor Hugo de- 
clares, that for the sake of a few commas he made eleven 
revisions of "La Legende des Siecles." Tolstoy is almost 
wearisome by repetition in artistic detail; in depicting 
the human body he is thought to be without an equal. 
Leave out the adjectives and let the nouns do the fighting, 
is Emerson's advice. A certain ordinary writer remarked 
concerning "Les Miserables," "If you or I had told the 
same story, it would have fallen flat; Hugo's style makes 
it what it is." Prescott thinks the most celebrated novels 
have been the production of the later period of life. Vol- 
taire advises a writer, though he may write with the 
rapidity of genius, to correct with scrupulous deliberation. 
There were men who thought they wrote like Cicero 
because they ended every sentence with esse videtur. 
Goethe, in discussing the "Iliad," expressed the belief, that 
Achilles was kept inactive for a time that other characters 
might develop themselves. There is no more painful 
action of the mind, Addison declares, than invention. 

CONCEIT 

IT is conceited not to wish to seem conceited, says 
Thackeray. Swift, when re-reading his early pro- 
ductions, would say, "What a genius I was when I wrote 
that." A Bostonian, after reading Shakspeare for the 
first time, remarked, "I call that a very clever book; 



64 LITERARY BREVITIES 

now I don't suppose there are twenty men in Boston to-day 
who could have written it." Dry den thinks every word 
a man says about himself is a word too much. Professor 
Woodberry pronounces Scott a master of behavior for 
both gentleman and peasant. According to Goethe's 
thinking, the constant balancing of our physical and moral 
conduct is always" a burdensome matter. Who can say 
how anyone of us would act in new circumstances? asks 
Goethe. Benson tells us that Wordsworth's chief reading 
in his later days was his own poetry. 

CONDUCT 

THERE is safety in numbers, says Balzac. Kant 
asserts, that a man must do right simply because 
it is right. C. C. Everett asks, "Who can say why it is 
right to do right?" Kant insists that no answer is pos- 
sible. "Oppressive civility" is one of Balzac's expres- 
sions. The Golden Rule is essentially in Confucius and 
also in the Talmud. The boldest of thinkers are often 
the most moral of men. From "Hudibras" we have, — 

"And we are best of all led to 
Men's principles by what they do ." 

The only remedy for a bad action, says H. W. Dresser, 
is a good one. Behavior is a mirror, observes Goethe, in 
which everyone displays his own image. According to 
Herbert Spencer, the perfect man's conduct will appear 
perfect — only when the environment is perfect. Trade, 
says Rosebery, has neither conscience nor bowels. 



CONSCIENCE 65 

CONFIDENCE 

LORD MELBOURNE wished he was as certain of 
anything as Tom Macaulay was of everything. It 
is a good maxim, Fielding thinks, to trust a man entirely, 
or not at all. Nil actum credens dum quid superesset 
agendum, was said by Lucan of Augustus Caesar. The 
whole lesson of history, says some one, is the lesson of the 
danger of affirmation. From him whom I trust, declares 
some writer, God defend me; for from him whom I trust 
not I will defend myself. Tolstoy is of the opinion, that 
everybody, in order to be able to act, must consider his 
occupation important and good. 

CONQUEST 
f I ^HIS from Shakspeare, — 

" — lest too light winning 
Make the prize light." 

This also from the same, — "I'll have our Michael Cassio 
on the hip." From Balzac we have, "When devil meets 
devil, there is nothing to be gained on either side." 

CONSCIENCE 

A CONSCIENCE, thought De Quincey, is a more 
expensive incumbrance than a wife or a carriage. 
It was a dictum of William Lloyd Garrison, that Senator 
Lodge differed from Senator Hoar in that Lodge had no 
conscience, while Hoar had a conscience but never obeyed 
it. The following aphorism is from " Gil Bias," — "To do 
wrong without being found out is more advantageous 
than to act well when appearances are against you." 



66 LITERARY BREVITIES 

The consciousness of well-doing is an ample reward, ob- 
serves Seneca. Vedder allows Howells all the gifts of a 
great journalist except, perhaps, lack of conscientious 
scruples. With the great mass of mankind the test of 
integrity in a public man is allowed to be consistency. 
Joubert affirms, that those who never retract love them- 
selves better than truth. Theramenes, because of his 
inconsistency, was called the buskin of Critias, the buskin 
fitting both legs but constant to neither. Hume declares 
that knowledge and good morals are inseparable in every 
age, though not in every individual. James II, being 
incensed against his nephew Grafton, asked him if he did 
not pretend to have a conscience; Grafton replied, "It 
is true, sire, that I have very little conscience, but I belong 
to a party which has a great deal." Common sense, 
Hazlitt observes, is tacit reason; and conscience is the 
same tacit sense of right and wrong. Robert Walpole did 
not say, "Every man has his price," but "All these men 
have their price." Men of character are the conscience 
of the society to which they belong, says Emerson. How 
many men are lost for want of being touched to the quick, 
Seneca remarks. Sir Charles Napier tells of a man so 
religious that he would not cough on Sunday. Some one 
describes a man whose conscience, instead of being his 
monitor, becomes his accomplice. According to Balzac, 
the sin is in proportion to the purity of the conscience, 
and an act which for some is scarcely a mistake, will weigh 
like a crime upon a few white souls. 

CONSISTENCY 

IF the devil makes a promise, remarks C. C. Everett, 
he always keeps it, even to his own hurt. A French 
judge, after the argument of the cause was over, put the 



CONTEMPT 67 

papers of the contending parties into opposite scales and 
decided according to the preponderance of weight. Con- 
sistency is an impossibility in a growing body, E. E. Sparks 
thinks. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," argued 
against usury, but later, after reading Bentham's defense 
of usury, changed his mind. If I were cautious I should 
not be William Tell, is a line from Schiller. So inconsist- 
ent is human nature, remarks Macaulay, that there are 
tender spots even in seared consciences. It has been re- 
marked, that there is no surer evidence of moral great- 
ness than the courage of inconsistency. Aristotle claims 
that we should not require demonstrations from orators, 
nor persuasion from mathematicians. It is an observa- 
tion of Barrett Wendell, that when you take neither side 
in any passionate controversy, each side will generally 
hold that you are taking the other. It is hard to accept 
gifts and insults from the same person, says Blanche 
Howard. No man can be strictly consistent at all times. 

CONSOLATION 

SHAKSPEARE speaks of one who receives comfort 
like cold porridge. Pascal thinks a little matter 
consoles us because a little matter afflicts us. 'Tis sweet 
to hear of troubles past, Euripides remarks. From Milton 
this — " Without the meed of some melodious tear." 

CONTEMPT 

FREDERICK THE GREAT affected the French 
language, and to speak German like a coachman. 
Some one has observed, that contempt for Locke is the 
beginning of knowledge. Would thou wert clean enough 
to spit upon, is Shakspeare's. The same again, — 



68 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"What our contempts do oft hurl from us, 
We wish it ours again." 

Addison writes, — 

"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer." 

Ben Jonson, in a fit of indignation at the niggardliness of 
James I, exclaimed, "He despises me, I suppose, because 
I live in an alley; tell him his soul lives in an alley." An 
ancient dean of Christ Church gave as one of the reasons 
for the study of Greek, that it gives one a proper contempt 
for those who are ignorant of it. As the extreme expres- 
sion of contempt, Balzac asks, "Where were you dug up? " 

CONTENTMENT 

QHAKSPEARE says, — 

^ "Our content 

Is our best having." 

Pascal asserts, that we endeavor to sustain the present by 
the future; and that if we examine our thoughts we shall 
find them always occupied with the past or the future. 
George Moore thinks there is no deep pleasure in con- 
tentment. Blessed are they, some one says, who expect 
nothing, for they will not be disappointed. 

CONTRADICTION 

THEOCRITUS would have the deer pursue the 
hounds, and the mountain owls outsing the night- 
ingale. Balzac speaks of one doomed to lead the life of a 
devil in holy water. Another tells of skinning your lion 
and shooting him afterwards. "Busy idleness" is Brown- 



CONTRADICTION 69 

ing's. George Herbert has, "Thou hast made the poor 
sand check the proud sea." Demophon, the steward of 
Alexander, was doomed to sweat in the shade and shiver 
in the sun. John Howard Payne, who wrote "Home, 
Sweet Home," had no home. Of some one it was said, 
he achieved a marvelous mediocrity. Misce stultitiam 
consiliis brevem, is a rule of Horace. Who was it that 
asked charity on horseback? The waterman looks one 
way and rows another. Achilles, though invulnerable, 
wore armor. Addison speaks of the satisfaction a physi- 
cian feels at the death of a patient, because he was killed 
according to art. Moliere's doctor thought it preferable 
to fail by rule than to succeed by innovation. The same 
cold bath which cured Augustus killed Marcellus. We 
have it on the authority of Dr. Holmes, that no lover of 
art will clash a Venetian goblet against a Roman amphora, 
to see which is the stronger; and that no lover of nature 
undervalues a violet because it is not a rose; comparisons 
used in the way of description, he observes, are not odious. 
William III said of a bitter Jacobite, "He has set his heart 
on being a martyr, and I have set mine on disappointing 
him." He that spits against the wind spits in his own 
face, observes Franklin. The same says, "God heals, 
and the doctor takes the fee." Can you blow a trumpet 
soberly? some one asks. Sewing lies with white thread, 
is in Balzac. We are told of a man so fond of contradic- 
tion, that he would throw up the window in the middle of 
the night and contradict the watchman who was calling 
the hour. Conan Doyle's hero announced, that he would 
slash to pieces any man who dared describe him as pug- 
nacious. Pleasure delights in contrasts, declares Balzac. 



70 LITERARY BREVITIES 

CONVERSATION 

HENRY JAMES mentions one who had but little of 
the small change of conversation. Sidney Smith's 
rule in conversation was — - never to talk more than half 
a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to 
strike in. Hazlitt says Coleridge always talks to people 
about what they don't understand. The graces of speech 
and the graces of behavior, observes Chesterfield, are as 
much in your power as powdering your hair. Conversa- 
tion is talk in evening dress, remarks Henry van Dyke. 
George Sand thinks it a difficult art to change the subject. 
According to Weir Mitchell, accuracy is very destructive 
to conversation. It is when you come close to a man in 
conversation, Dr. Johnson maintains, that you discover 
what his real abilities are. Justin McCarthy asserts, 
that Henry James never could be commonplace in any 
conversation. It has been observed, that one of Madame 
Recamier's arts and charms was to make the most of the 
person with whom she was talking. One of Charles 
Reade's characters talked "nineteen to the dozen." 
A propos of Macaulay's great conversational powers, it is 
related that he and his friend Charles Austin once got 
engaged in a discussion at breakfast, and were so interest- 
ing in their talk that the whole company in the house lis- 
tened entranced till it was time to dress for dinner. When 
Burns came late to an inn, the servants would get out of 
bed to hear him talk. Who was the author of "the 
polysyllabic art of saying nothing"? And who of this, 
"There were so many subjects to be avoided, that con- 
versation was difficult"? Short answers, says Socrates, 
are best for short memories. George Eliot thinks one 
can say everything best over a meal. This excerpt is 
from Balzac, "She had the cleverness to make me dance 



CONVERSATION 71 

with idiots who told me how hot the room was, as if I 
were frozen, and talked of the beauty of the hall, as if I 
were blind." Dr. Johnson could talk equally well on 
either side of a question. Silence itself is often a reply, 
says Balzac. It is a favorite fancy of mine, remarks 
Rogers in his " Table Talk," that perhaps in the next world 
the use of words may be dispensed with, that our thoughts 
may stream into each other's minds without any verbal 
communication. We can cauterize a wound, observes 
Balzac, but we know no remedy for the hurt produced by 
a speech. His words flew like a gutter after a hailstorm, 
is Le Sage's description. Of some one it was said, all his 
words were not to be found in the dictionary. Sainte- 
Beuve thought it better to read one man than ten books. 
Conversation is impossible without generalities, Balzac 
thinks. To talk without effort, says Hare, is after all the 
great charm of talking. According to Landor, talkative 
men seldom read. A flow of words, says Balzac, is a 
sure sign of duplicity. Montaigne regards perfect agree- 
ment in conversation of all things the most tiresome. Sir 
Arthur Helps liked to listen rather than to talk, and used 
to say that when anything apposite did occur to him, it 
was generally the day after the conversation had taken 
place. One never properly enjoys the beauties of nature 
unless he can talk them over on the spot, Heine observes. 
Dr. Johnson never thought he had hit hard, unless it 
rebounded. Matthew Arnold is of opinion, that a full 
mind must have talk or it will grow dyspeptic. It has 
been alleged, that Goldsmith never told a story but he 
spoiled it. I have something to tell you that can't be 
sweetened, is the way some one puts it. Crothers de- 
clares, that there is nothing so fatal to conversation as an 
authoritative utterance. Haydon writes, that after an 
evening with Wordsworth, Keats, and Lamb, all their 



72 LITERARY BREVITIES 

fun could be said to have been within bounds; that not 
a word had passed that an apostle might not have listened 
to. Thackeray observes of one, that she had not said 
more than she meant, but more than she meant to say. 
William James regarded variety in unity to be the secret 
of all interesting talk and thought. When Coleridge was 
about to leave a certain hotel in London the landlord 
offered him free quarters if he would stay and talk, so 
entertaining and attractive was he. Hawthorne thinks 
it very wrong and ill-mannered in people to ask for an 
introduction unless they are prepared to make talk. 
Madame de Stael obtained her literary material almost 
exclusively from conversation. In the opinion of George 
Moore, a mere listener is a dead weight in conversation. 
It has been remarked by some one, that the great art of 
conversation is to ask people the right kind of questions. 
Turgenieff has observed, that a man always feels con- 
science-stricken somehow and uncomfortable, when he 
has been talking a great deal. E. J. Payne asserts, that 
the decline of the art of conversation has been accom- 
panied by the decline of style. Addison thinks nothing 
so talkative as misfortune. 

CONVICTIONS 

SIXTIETH year, remarks Balzac, an age when men 
rarely renounce their convictions. Happy the man, 
says Lessing, who can live up to his convictions. Goethe 
thinks one cannot expect to convert enemies in the heat of 
the conflict and excitement. In the old days, some one 
records, I desired to convince; I am now only too thank- 
ful to be convinced of error and ignorance. 



COURAGE 73 

COURAGE 

LANDOR tells us of virtuous maidens who breathed 
courage into the heart before it beat to love. It is 
said, that in deep water we must either swim or drown. 
Grasp the thistle strongly and it will sting you less, is 
Hawthorne's advice. According to Plutarch, the angry 
man is courageous. Bunyan's poor Christian was so con- 
founded that he did not know his own voice. In splitting 
a gnarled log, it is advisable to strike at the knot. There 
is nothing, says Le Sage, like taking scandal by the beard, 
and testing the opinion of the world with heroic indiffer- 
ence. We are urged to put a good face on a losing game. 
Euripides asserts, that darkness turns runaways into 
heroes. Things out of hope are compassed oft by ven- 
turing, writes Shakspeare. Harold Frederic declares, 
that danger makes men brave; and that it likewise makes 
them selfish and jealous. Socrates thought courage a 
science. In his first battle, that of Mollwitz, Frederick 
the Great acted in a cowardly manner. A man must 
have courage to fear, is Montaigne's observation. Far- 
ragut said of a certain naval officer, "Every man has one 
chance; he has had his and lost it." Homer commends 
iEneas for his skill in running away. There is no creature 
more impudent than a coward, Addison observes. 
Aristotle thinks we become brave by performing brave 
actions. Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona multi, is Horace's 
famous line. So this is Virgil's, Una salus victis nullam 
sperare salutem. And this from Terence, Fortes fortuna 
adjuvat. Captain Morris, of the Bristol, in the attack 
upon Charleston in June, 1776, after remaining below 
long enough to have his shattered arm amputated, re- 
turned to the upper deck to take command again and was 
killed. Bancroft pronounces the taking of Stony Point 



74 LITERARY BREVITIES 

by "Mad Anthony Wayne," as brilliant an achieve- 
ment as any in the Revolution. Lions make leopards 
tame, writes Shakspeare. This also from Shakspeare, — 

"The poor wren, 
The most diminutive of birds, will fight, 
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl." 

One kind of courage, according to Aristotle, is that when 
a man seems to be brave, only because he does not see 
his danger. In a false quarrel, Shakspeare says, there is 
no true valor. It sometimes requires more courage to 
refuse a challenge than to accept one, thinks Eugene Sue. 
None but the brave deserves the fair, is Dryden's. Cour- 
age, so it be righteous, observes Beethoven, will gain all 
things. The curs bark loudest, says Balzac. Our first 
best lesson — to endure, is Schiller's line. Paul Jones, 
being asked if he had struck his colors, said quickly, 
"Struck? Not at all. I have only just begun my part of 
the fighting." King Alfred participated personally in 
fifty-six pitched battles. Of a recklessly daring man it 
was said, he did not know what the color of fear is. When 
Pompey was told by an oracle that in going to a certain 
place he would surely risk his life, he rejoined, "It is 
necessary to go, it is not necessary to live." It needs 
valor and integrity, John Morley affirms, to stand forth 
against a wrong to which our best friends are most ar- 
dently committed. Crothers advises, that as we have 
more than one kind of courage, it is well to be prepared 
for emergencies. According to Earl St. Vincent, the true 
test of a man's courage is his power to bear responsibility. 
Without courage, George Meredith remarks, conscience 
is a sorry guest. The same again observes, that courage 
wants training, as well as other fine capacities. Bravery 
is noble only when the object is noble, is the thought of 



COURTESY 75 

Lafcadio Hearn. If a great man struggling with mis- 
fortune is a noble object, says Cowper, a little man that 
despises it is no contemptible one. Dean Stanley thought 
being made a bishop destroyed a man's moral courage. 
Addison says courage is but ill shown before a lady. I 
have courage enough to walk through hell barefoot, is by 
Schiller. 

COURTESY 

IT is claimed by William Winter, that Shakspeare, the 
wisest of monitors, is never so eloquent as when he 
makes one of his people express praise of another. Cour- 
tesy and good humor, declares Dr. Johnson, are often 
found with little real worth. William III was bearish; 
when Princess Anne dined with him, at a time when green 
peas, the first of the year, were put upon the table, he 
devoured the whole dish without giving her any. Every 
civilization has its simple beginnings, when children are 
modest and polite. Thomas Fuller tells us that William, 
Earl of Nassau, won a subject from Spain every time he 
put off his hat. As polite as a gambler. Fielding speaks 
of that business which requires no apprenticeship, — that 
of being a gentleman. Some one claims, that an Italian 
would say "My dear" to a hangman. So it is likewise 
claimed, that to be always of the opinion of others is true 
politeness. There is said to have been an over-nice lord 
in Great Britain, who, when alone, would not cross his 
legs before the fire for fear of being improper. The cour- 
teous disposition of Marlborough was shown in his ordering 
his troops to protect the estates of Fenelon. It is a dictum 
of the younger Pliny, that if you lend a man your ears, 
all the grace of the act vanishes if you ask for his in re- 
turn. Polyphemus granted Ulysses the courtesy of being 
devoured last. Charles Reade thinks men are not ruined 



76 LITERARY BREVITIES 

by civility. Emerson found Leigh Hunt and De Quincey 
the finest mannered literary men he met in England. 
The favors of a man like Richelieu are not easily refused, 
remarks Matthew Arnold. Some one reminds us, that it 
is not civil to contradict a man in his own house. When 
it was a matter of wonder how Keats, who was ignorant of 
Greek, could have written his "Hyperion," Shelley, whom 
envy never touched, gave as a reason, "Because he was 
a Greek." Jefferson thought politeness had been invented 
to enable people who would naturally fall out to live 
together in peace. Of the poets contemporary with 
Shakspeare he mentions only Marlowe and Ben Jonson. 
Horace gives it as a rule, that when three are walking 
abreast, the post of honor is in the middle. We soften 
devilish into diabolical. Bishop Middleton thinks virtue 
itself offends when coupled with forbidding manners. 
Thackeray would request a visitor not to leave his card, 
as it had cost two cents and would answer for another 
call. All that she looks on is made pleasanter, is Dante's 
graceful compliment. As there was no room in the Royal 
Academy for a meritorious picture by Bird, an obscure 
painter, Turner, who was on the hanging committee, took 
down one of his own pictures and put Bird's in its place; 
Ruskin called this a story that ought to be told in heaven. 
The welcome of the host, says Scott, will always be the 
better part of the entertainment. A propos of the polite- 
ness of the French as compared with the Germans, Heine 
wrote, "If some one accidentally jostled me without 
immediately asking pardon, I could safely wager it was a 
fellow-countryman; and if a pretty woman looked a little 
sour, she had either eaten sauerkraut or could read Klop- 
stock in the original." Franklin never contradicted 
people. There is no better test of a man's breeding than 
by putting a stranger into his pew. If you wish to appear 



COURTESY 77 

agreeable in society, observes Talleyrand, you must con- 
sent to be taught many things you already know. Victor 
Hugo would rather be hissed for a good verse than ap- 
plauded for a bad one. Bulwer affirmed, that to dispense 
with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a 
compliment. Your excellency's happiness makes ours, is 
Victor Hugo's delicate way of putting it. According to 
Lessing, politeness is not a duty, while, on the other hand, 
for the good of the majority, candor is a duty. When 
minister at London, Van Buren made it his business to 
be cordial with prominent men on both sides. Montaigne 
had often seen men uncivil by over-civility, and trouble- 
some in their courtesy. Politeness consists in forgetting 
yourself for others, is Balzac's definition. Emerson says 
a gentleman makes no noise. Charming courtesy be- 
tween contemporary authors, though by no means com- 
mon, has been of sufficient frequency to relieve them 
somewhat of the charge of extreme jealousy. Racine 
used to point out to his children a line of Corneille which 
he greatly admired. Thackeray was pleased to have his 
children love Dickens. The close friendship that existed 
between Virgil and Horace is well known. When Haydn 
saw the portrait of Mrs. Billington, the famous soprano, 
he said to Reynolds, "You have made a mistake; you have 
represented Mrs. Billington listening to the angels; you 
should have represented the angels listening to her." 
The generous conduct of Edward the "Black Prince" in 
acting as table-servant to the French king after the battle 
of Poictiers, had for an example the chivalrous compli- 
ments Saladin paid Richard Coeur de Lion. Ovid ad- 
vises his lover, when he sits in the circus near his mistress, 
to wipe the dust off her neck even if there is none on it. 
One of Landor's characters is made to say, "There are 
even in Greece a few remaining still so barbarous, that I 



78 LITERARY BREVITIES 

have heard them whisper in the midst of the finest scenes 
of our greatest poets." 

CRIME 

EMERSON assures us, that we cannot do wrong with- 
out suffering wrong. Balzac calls crime a lack of 
reason. Some think it better to have one great vice than 
a spice of little ones. Colley Gibber's brother, a vile 
fellow, once told Dr. Sim Burton that he did not know 
any sin he had not been guilty of but one, which was 
avarice; and if the Doctor would give him a guinea, he 
would do his utmost to be guilty of that too. iEschylus's 
characters suffer for their sins. Every crime, says Haw- 
thorne, destroys more Edens than our own. One leak 
will sink a ship, says Bunyan, and one sin will destroy a 
sinner. As an angel you are not amiss, observes Haw- 
thorne; you need a sin to soften you. Shakspeare says 
some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. Browning 
declares, that the proper process of unsinning sin is to 
begin well-doing somehow else. Shakspeare thinks there 
is some soul of goodness in things evil. It is a Welsh 
saying, that God himself cannot procure good for the 
wicked. Men abandoned to vice, Bacon thinks, do not 
corrupt the manners of others so much as those who are 
half wicked. Blackie claims, that the man who lives at 
random will be ruined without the help of any positive 
vice. So Pascal, — "Pride and idleness are the two 
sources of all vice." No vices are so incurable, Addison 
thinks, as those which men are apt to glory in. By the 
common consent of humanity, says an English writer, a 
fault is half excused when it is known to be general. Poe 
says men naturally grow bad by degrees. According to 
Balzac, a folly that doesn't succeed becomes a crime. 



CRITICISM 79 

Tennyson thinks every man imputes himself. The same 
poet observes, that there is hardly any crime greater than 
for a man with genius to propagate vice by his written 
words. This from Racine, — 

"All the first steps to crime some effort cost, 
But easy those that follow." 

The effect of Schiller's "Robbers" upon German students 
was such as to cause some of them to become real banditti. 
Sisyphus has the credit of being the greatest knave of 
antiquity. I see no fault committed, confesses Goethe, 
that I have not committed myself. 

CRITICISM 

LOWELL maintains, that the best poetry has been the 
most savagely attacked. Talleyrand thought Na- 
poleon, Fox, and Alexander Hamilton the three greatest 
men of their epoch. Plato was blamed for asking money, 
Aristotle for receiving it, Democritus for neglecting it, 
Epicurus for consuming it. In the judgment of Louns- 
bury, modern culture consists largely in the most refined 
method of finding fault. May Sinclair thinks lyric poets 
are cases of arrested development. Campbell claims, that 
the repetition of a word, when necessary, is not offensive. 
La Bruyere declares, that the surest test of a man's 
critical power is his judgment of contemporaries. This is 
Macaulay's confession: "I have not written a page of 
criticism on poetry or the fine arts, which I would not burn 
if I had the power; such books as Lessing's 'Laocoon,' 
such passages as the criticism on Hamlet in 'Wilhelm 
Meister,' fill me with wonder and despair." All that is 
fine in Milton is beyond comparison, asserts Sainte-Beuve. 
It is Goldsmith's polite advice, that the critic should 



80 LITERARY BREVITIES 

always take care to say that the picture would have been 
better if the painter had taken more pains. William 
Winter protests, with undisguised impatience, that it is 
not easy to believe that Shakspeare, after he had created 
Falstaff and thoroughly drawn him, was capable of les- 
sening the character and making it almost despicable 
with paltriness — as certainly it becomes in "The Merry 
Wives." If you wish to have your works coldly reviewed, 
says the poet Rogers, have your intimate friend write 
an article on them. One runs no risk in trusting the liter- 
ary taste of a man who loves Hawthorne. Criticism 
cannot hurt what is truly great, declares Andrew Lang. 
William Matthews is of opinion, that of all critics concern- 
ing poetry, the most fallible are poets. Lewes did not 
allow George Eliot to read the adverse criticisms on her 
writings. George Eliot often speaks of Dickens with great 
kindness, but seems nowhere to praise him as an author, 
as she does Thackeray. Scott found no pleasure in read- 
ing the "Divine Comedy"; so Emerson never succeeded 
in reading one of Hawthorne's stories; so Byron could not 
read the "Faerie Queene." According to Frederic Har- 
rison, it is impossible to give any method to our reading 
till we get nerve enough to reject. Poe thought "Pil- 
grim's Progress " a ludicrously overestimated book. Ben 
Jonson used to say he would rather have been the author 
of the popular English ballad, " Chevy Chase," than of all 
his own works; Dr. Samuel Johnson, on the other hand, 
saw in the same ballad only lifeless imbecility. I doubt, 
declares Southey, whether any man ever criticized a good 
poem, who had not written a bad one himself. Goethe 
praised Scott. Victor Hugo insists that criticism cannot 
apply to genius. I have come to be suspicious of my 
judgment, when I find myself greatly taken with the first 
reading of a book; my great admiration is almost certain 



CRITICISM 81 

to have a subsequent fall. George Eliot was partial to 
" Silas Marner." Plautus rebukes the hypercriticism of one 
who would try to find a knot in a reed. Emerson could 
not endure Shelley. Cultivated society, Lounsbury asserts, 
has always been afflicted with a class too superlatively 
intellectual to enjoy what everybody else likes. We are 
told of authors who write, and then publish, favorable 
criticisms of their own productions. No man was ever 
written down except by himself, affirms Richard Bentley. 
Boswell requested his friend, William J. Temple, to com- 
municate to him all the good he heard about his writings, 
but to conceal from him all censure. Socrates had no 
appreciation of the beauties of Greek sculpture. Dr. 
Johnson says a man who is asked by an author what he 
thinks of his work, is put to the torture and is not obliged 
to speak the truth. It is a rule laid down by Joubert, 
that we should never show the reverse of a medal to those 
who have not seen its face; and that we should never 
speak of the faults of a good man to those who know 
neither his countenance nor his life nor his merits. Be- 
fore Hood published his "Song of the Shirt," his wife told 
him it was the best thing he ever did. Landor tells us 
his prejudices in favor of ancient literature began to wear 
away upon reading " Paradise Lost." Landor pronounces 
the " iEneid " the most misshapen of epics — an epic of epi- 
sodes; he calls Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered" the most 
perfect in its plan. The same sees in the style of Hume 
something resembling a French translation of Machi- 
avelli; he declares again that fine verses may be bad 
poetry. The following is a lengthy quotation from Landor: 
"Swift ridiculed the music of Handel and the generalship 
of Marlborough; Pope the perspicacity and scholarship 
of Bentley; Gray the abilities of Shaftesbury and the 
eloquence of Rousseau; Shakspeare hardly found those 



82 LITERARY BREVITIES 

who would collect his tragedies; the elephant is born to 
be consumed by ants in the midst of his unapproachable 
solitudes; Wordsworth is the prey of Jeffrey. Why 
repine? Let us recollect that God in the creation left his 
noblest creatures to the mercy of a serpent." It is hard 
indeed, says the same author, if they who are lame will 
not let you limp. Amiel asserts, that a chronicler may 
be able to correct Tacitus, but Tacitus survives all the 
chroniclers. George Eliot was particularly anxious to 
know what Thackeray thought of her first story. Balzac 
declared, that when he wanted the world to praise his 
novels he wrote a drama; and when he wanted his dramas 
praised he wrote a novel. Landor cared nothing for 
Spenser. A little boy said his sister's photograph looked 
natural all except the face. My later experience, said 
General Grant, has taught me two lessons: first, that 
things are seen plainer after the events have occurred; 
second, that the most confident critics are generally those 
who know the least about the matter criticised. With 
Macaulay, everything in the literary line is extremely 
good or extremely bad. Macaulay places Cicero at the 
head of minds of the second order. Scott says of Cooper's 
" Pilot," "The novel is a clever one, and the sea scenes and 
all characters in particular are well drawn." All who 
offer themselves to criticism are desirous of praise, Allen 
Cunningham thinks. To him whose survey is from a 
great elevation, all men below are of equal size, says 
Landor. It is the worst member of the family that settles 
what the world shall think of the others, observes James 
Lane Allen. Smollett speaks of damning to infamy a 
general for not performing impossibilities. By some good 
judges Sainte-Beuve is regarded as the greatest literary 
critic of all time; Matthew Arnold is, in this connection, 
to be mentioned at the same time with Sainte-Beuve. 



CRITICISM 83 

Swift calls a true critic a discoverer and a collector of 
writer's faults; and thinks that in the perusal of a book 
he is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach 
are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and con- 
sequently is apt to snarl most when there are fewest bones. 
Lord Chesterfield slurs Dante; and Coleridge speaks dis- 
paragingly of Gibbon. Adam Smith committed each chap- 
ter of his " Wealth of Nations " to the criticism of Franklin 
before printing it. Balzac tells of a carping critic who 
blows his nose during a cavatina at the opera. Scott asks, 
"Who in the fiend's name would listen to the thrush when 
the nightingale is singing?" People praised "Eugenie 
Grandet" so much that its author began to feel a coldness 
toward it. Scott disliked Dante. Aristotle never seemed 
to appreciate his great contemporary, Demosthenes. 
Some one has said that the criticism of a foreigner is as 
near as we can get to the verdict of posterity. Strange to 
say, Poe rates " Paradise Regained " little, if at all, inferior 
to "Paradise Lost." Poe had no appreciation of Words- 
worth. Tennyson, to the surprise of many good judges, did 
not think highly of George Eliot's "Romola." Napoleon 
ranked Desaix as his best general, Kleber next, and Lannes 
as the third; he thought Caesar a greater general than 
Alexander; and that Gustavus Adolphus had gained fame 
at a cheap rate, as he fought only three battles, and lost 
two of them; he pronounced Louis XIV the only king of 
France worthy of the name; and allowed Frederick the 
Great, Turenne, and Conde to stand in the first rank of 
generals. Voltaire called Shakspeare an inspired savage. 
Balzac considered Sterne the most original of English 
writers. Washington Allston, born at Charleston, S. C, 
in 1779, the greatest American painter of his time, also 
had high rank as a poet. Musical people, whom I have 
heard criticise other musical people, declares Crothers, 



84 LITERARY BREVITIES 

seem more offended when some one flats just a little than 
when he makes a big ear-splitting discord; and moralists 
are apt to have the same fastidiousness. McCarthy, 
rather unjustly it would seem, says Anthony Trollope, 
who has sometimes been called the apostle of the common- 
place, is Thackeray produced into thinness. Calvin, in 
his "Commentaries on the New Testament," found it 
impossible to do anything with " Revelation." Coleridge 
treats Gibbon as a historian with savage disparagement. 
According to Coleridge, good prose is proper words in their 
proper places; good poetry is the most proper words in 
their proper places. The characters in the play which 
are wholly the creations of Shakspeare are always the 
best; Falstaff, Benedict, and Beatrice are a few of many in- 
stances to prove this. Newton, when asked his opinion of 
poetry, gave that of Barrow, that it is a kind of ingenious 
nonsense. Everything which is most admirable in poetry, 
Dr. Johnson thinks, is to be found in Homer. Symonds is 
of the opinion, that the world has suffered no greater 
literary loss than the loss of Sappho's poems. Johnson says 
Shakspeare never has six lines together without a fault. 
Emerson thinks Wordsworth's "Ode to Immortality" 
is the high-water mark which the intellect has reached in 
this age. He also says Swift describes his fictitious per- 
sons as if for the police. Matthew Arnold calls Burke the 
greatest English prose writer; and Pascal, Bossuet, 
Fenelon, and Voltaire the greatest prose writers of France. 
He thinks the English poetry of the first quarter of the 
nineteenth century, with plenty of energy, plenty of 
creative force, did not know enough; that this makes 
Byron so empty of matter, Shelley so incoherent, Words- 
worth even, profound as he is, yet so wanting in com- 
pleteness and variety. Matthew Arnold and Hartley 
Coleridge pronounced Bryant's "Waterfowl" to be the 



CRITICISM 85 

best short poem in the language. Wordsworth cared little 
for books, and, strange to say, disparaged Goethe. L. H. 
Vincent declares Lowell to be the most complete illustra- 
tion we have of the literary man. Henry James calls 
Hawthorne that best of Americans. Addison thought 
his poems superior to The Spectator. After Napoleon's 
fall, a certain Bourbon remarked to Madame de Stael, 
that Napoleon had neither talent nor courage. Her reply 
was, "It is degrading France and Europe too much, sir, 
to pretend that for fifteen years they have been subject 
to a simpleton and a poltroon." It is the opinion of 
Goethe, that when a man like Schlegel picks faults in so 
great an ancient as Euripides, he ought only to do it upon 
his knees. Sheridan, Byron, and George III all thought 
Shakspeare a much over-rated writer. It is William 
Black's idea, that we should find it harder to please our- 
selves than to please others. Following is some of Heine's 
suggestive criticism, "Nothing is more foolish than to 
depreciate Goethe in order to exalt Schiller; do such 
critics not know that those highly extolled, highly ideal- 
ized figures, those pictures of virtue and morality which 
Schiller produced, were much easier to construct than 
those frail, worldly beings of whom Goethe gives us a 
glimpse in his works? Do they not know that mediocre 
painters generally select sacred subjects, which they daub 
in life-size on the canvas? but it requires a great master 
to paint with lifelike fidelity and technical perfection a 
Spanish beggar-boy scratching himself?" Burns re- 
marked of some of his over-nice critics, that they reminded 
him of some spinsters in his country, who spin their thread 
so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof. Henry 
James calls Browning a poet without a lyre. Cooper's 
female characters are poor talkers, and are said never to 
be able to do anything successfully but faint. To the 



86 LITERARY BREVITIES 

mind of Henry James, Shakspeare is the greatest genius 
who has represented and ornamented life. It is customary 
with the Chinese to cure a critic by giving him responsi- 
bility. Sulla saw many Mariuses in young Julius Caesar. 
Bad plays are best decried, says Dryden, by showing good. 
With the single exception of Luther, Carlyle says there is, 
perhaps, in these modern ages, no other man of merely 
intellectual character, whose influence and reputation have 
become so entirely European as that of Voltaire. Creevey, 

speaking of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," says, "D 

his writing, but his stuff is invaluable." Never waste your 
time, advises Ruskin, on people who want their pictures 
looked at to see if they are genuine; they never are, and 
any dealer will tell them so for a guinea. The comment is 
sometimes finer than the text; the notes supplementary 
to Longfellow's Translation of Dante are almost as valu- 
able as the text. A good saying of a third-rate writer is 
just as good as if it had been said by Shakspeare. Goethe 
declares, that the works of the ancients are not classics 
because they are old, but because they are energetic, 
fresh, buoyant. Dr. John Brown prefers Thackeray ten 
times over to Dickens. Balzac thinks Goethe's greatest 
work is his " Tasso." Boileau thought Mme. De La 
Fayette the woman who had the most mind in France and 
the one who wrote the best. According to Hare's thinking, 
among the hundreds of characters in Walter Scott's novels 
hardly one has not more life and reality than his portrait 
of Napoleon. It is only certain people who see the moles 
on the hero's face, says George Eliot. Cardinal Mazarin 
declared that Louis XIV had the stuff in him to make four 
kings and one honest man. Sumner and Wendell Phillips 
called Fessenden a dyspeptic Scotch terrier. It is sur- 
prising, that Goethe could have disparaged Victor Hugo, 
who, he thought, wrote too much, and for money. Landor 



CRITICISM 87 

asserts, that the eyes of critics, whether in commending 
or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's. Landor 
thinks there is scarcely a text in the Holy Scriptures to 
which there is not an opposite text. Tennyson advised 
Ellen Terry to say "luncheon," not "lunch." Voltaire 
places Virgil above Homer. Gladstone thought Homer, 
Dante, and Shakspeare the three greatest men who have 
ever lived. Our taste, says Bacon, is never pleased better 
than with those things which at first created disgust in 
us. The actor McCullough thought Walt Whitman's 
poetry "spavined stuff." No German, says Heine, is so 
rich in thoughts and emotions as Richter, but he never 
allows them to ripen. Mediocrity is never discussed, 
observes Balzac. Macaulay, speaking of Xenophon's 
abilities, says he had elegant taste, but a weak head. 
Jacob compares his son Issachar to an ass, as Homer does 
his hero Ajax. Lanier observes, that art has no enemy so 
unrelenting as cleverness. Cowper accuses Pope of giving 
sense of his own not all warranted by the words of Homer, 
and sometimes of omitting the difficult part altogether. It 
is a remark of Goethe, that he can tolerate all men till they 
come to "however." It is his observation, also, that one 
is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows. 
Huxley thought George Sand "bigger" than George 
Eliot. So great was Voltaire's prestige at one time, that 
his disparagement of Shakspeare temporarily did serious 
damage to the great Englishman's fame. In art, observes 
Huxley, if a man chooses to call Raphael a dauber, you 
can't prove he is wrong. Huxley thought the general 
effect of Naples was such as would be produced by a 
beautiful woman who had not washed or dressed her hair 
for a month. It was the opinion of Burke, that Dr. 
Goldsmith was the greatest fool that ever wrote the best 
poem of a century, the best novel of a century, and the 



88 LITERARY BREVITIES 

best comedy of a century. Landor is inclined to think 
that good writers are often gratified by the commendation 
of bad ones. Moliere's serving- woman said to him, 
"That's amusing, read on." To praise a fault is worse 
than to commit one, Landor declares. Wellington 
claimed that he had no small talk, and that Peel had no 
manners. Landor believes, that experience makes one 
more sensible of faults than of beauties. A carping critic 
who read the works of Hans Christian Andersen solely 
for the purpose of pointing out defects, was rebuked by a 
six-year-old girl, who took the book under criticism and 
pointing to the conjunction and said, "There is yet one 
little word you have not 'scolded.'" 

CRUELTY 

WHEN flesh was only to be had at a high price for 
feeding his wild beasts, the Emperor Caligula 
ordered that criminals should be given them to be de- 
voured. Madame Du Barry's amiable desire was, to make 
every woman who hoped for a heaven hereafter experience 
a hell on earth. Montaigne is authority for the story that 
Amestris, the mother of Xerxes, being grown old, caused 
at once fourteen youths of the best Persian families to 
be burned alive, according to the religion of the country, 
to gratify some infernal deity. When Hepaestion died of 
fever at Ekbatana, Alexander caused the physician who 
had attended him to be crucified. Torture was used for 
the last time in England in 1640. Seneca mentions a 
Persian king who had the noses of a whole nation cut off, 
and they were to thank him that he had spared their 
heads. When Foulon was asked what the people would 
do, he replied, "The people may eat grass." It is Plu- 
tarch's observation, that no beast is more savage than 



CUSTOM 89 

man, when he is possessed of power equal to his passion. 
It was a Roman who put a slave to death, that a curious 
friend might see what dying is like. Pascal mentions the 
fact, that Augustus, when he learned that Herod's own 
son was among the children under the age of two years 
whom Herod had ordered to be slain, declared it was better 
to be Herod's pig than his son. It is recorded by Dr. 
Johnson, that Sixtus Quintus, on his death-bed, in the 
intervals of his last pangs, signed death warrants. The 
first Roman was suckled by a wolf. Sir Arthur Helps 
asserts, anent the fact that very wise men in England 
once thought torture a judicious mode of discovering 
truth, that nothing but a relapse into barbarism could 
bring us back to it; that long columns of weighty names 
would never again reconcile us to burning witches. The 
Tartar king, Tamerlane, built a pyramid of seventy thou- 
sand human skulls. General Turreau, Bonaparte's min- 
ister at Washington, had for a secretary a violincello 
player who was made to play every day while Turreau 
horsewhipped his wife, that her cries would not be 
audible. 

CUSTOM 

IN the time of Henry VIII, to kiss a lady was an act of 
courtesy, not of familiarity; in dancing it was the 
customary fee of the lady's partner. It was during the 
crusades, in the time of Richard I, that the custom of 
using coats of arms was first introduced into Europe. No 
citizen was allowed to carry arms within the walls of 
Rome. Ibsen thinks people generally get used to the 
inevitable. A Grecian officer of rank had his shield 
carried by an attendant except when in actual conflict. 
Under the elder Cato's censorship Lucius Flaminius, ex- 
consul, was degraded for kissing his wife in presence of his 



90 LITERARY BREVITIES 

daughter. It was a Thessalian custom to keep a watch 
over the dead until burial. The Celts reckoned time 
by nights rather than by days. The Arabs begin their 
day at noon. The fashions called English in Paris are 
called French in London, according to Balzac. Herodotus 
tells of nations where the men sleep and wake by half 
years. While John Smith was a captive among the 
Indians, on one occasion, after washing his hands, a 
bunch of feathers was offered him to dry them with. 
Gibbon informs us, that it was an ancient custom in the 
funerals, as well as the triumphs, of the Romans, to have 
the voice of praise corrected by that of satire and ridicule. 
This is from Shakspeare, — 

"It is a custom 
More honored in the breach than the observance." 

This again from the same, "Nice customs curt'sy to great 
kings." An elegant Roman, meeting a friend, regretted 
he could not invite him "because my number is complete." 
It is Shakspeare's discriminating observation, that the 
fashion wears out more apparel than the man. The 
Abyssinians do not smoke; this, according to a legend, is 
because a certain King Johannes made a law that whoever 
was seen smoking or chewing tobacco should have his 
lower jaw amputated. Landor, speaking of a certain 
cannibal tribe in central Africa, said only the men par- 
took of human flesh, not the women. Hadrian revived 
the custom of wearing the beard, because, as is thought, 
he had scars on his face. 



DEATH 91 



DEATH 



SENECA thinks it a great providence, that we have 
more ways out of the world than we have ways 
into it. Rousseau estimated that half the children 
born into the world die before the eighth year. It was 
Dean Swift's apprehension, that he, like a certain tree 
whose upper limbs were beginning to decay, should com- 
mence to die at the top. The journey of life is thus 
epitomized by Marcus Aurelius: "Thou hast embarked, 
thou hast made the voyage, thou hast come to shore; 
get out." Of one who was hanged, Browning says, "He 
danced the jig that needs no floor." According to Seneca, 
there is nothing that nature has made necessary which is 
more easy than death. Buddha calls death that change 
which never changes. Death is declared to have been 
terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato, and indifferent to 
Socrates. The old harper, as recorded by Goethe, carried 
a glass of laudanum to ward off suicide, as he thought the 
possibility of casting off his load of griefs forever would 
give him strength to bear them. To carry through great 
undertakings, it has been thought one should act as though 
he could never die. Hanging is too good, is in Shakspeare. 
So again Shakspeare says, — 

"Thou bear'st thy riches but a journey, 
And death unloads thee." 

Ill fares the life, observes Bulwer, that a single death can 
bereave of all. Goethe's last words were, "More light." 
Balzac is of the opinion, that people who talk of dying 
never kill themselves. This from Burns, — 

"His soul has ta'en some other way, 
I fear, the left-hand road." 



92 LITERARY BREVITIES 

The oracle of Ammon, when consulted by Pindar as to 
what is best for man, replied, "Death." What is so uni- 
versal as death must be a benefit, thought Schiller. The 
coffin is a favorite birthday present among the Chinese. 
Our dead are never dead to us, says George Eliot, until 
they are forgotten. Criminals, when thrown from the 
Leucadian promontory, were allowed to have live birds 
attached to them to buoy them up. Cicero thinks the 
wisest are the ones who die with the greatest resignation. 
Luther blamed Erasmus for not wishing to be burned at 
the stake. Blessed Nirvana — sinless, stirless rest, is 
some one's unique way of designating death. The dying 
words of Dr. Bircham in " Kenilworth " were, "My last 
verb is conjugated." I sometimes wonder, remarked 
Samuel Rogers, how a man can ever be cheerful when he 
knows he must die. The following is from the poet 
Campbell, — 

"To live in hearts we leave behind 
Is not to die." 

It was the notion of Dumas, that death does not look so 
ugly in fine weather; that more people have been brave 
in August than in December. Balzac speaks of one who 
had twice said his In manus. Counsellor Hesselts, of the 
Council of Twelve, used to sleep during the trial of heretics, 
and when his turn came to vote on a sentence of death, 
used to cry out, still half asleep, "Ad patibulum" Portia, 
Brutus's wife, died from swallowing red-hot pieces of 
charcoal. Beaconsfield asserted, that assassination has 
never changed the history of the world. Three of our 
early Presidents — Adams, Jefferson, and Monroe — died 
on the fourth of July. It was a great matter with the 
ancients to die decently. Victor Hugo tells of one who 
spoke a dead language, which was like forcing his thoughts 
to dwell in a tomb. When Pausanias, fleeing from the 



DEATH 93 

Lacedaemonians, took refuge in a shrine of Minerva, they 
walled him in and allowed him to starve to death. Juvenal 
thought old age more to be feared than death. Joseph 
Jefferson's great grandfather died of laughter on the stage. 
The dying words of John Quincy Adams were, — "This 
is the last of earth; I am content." Non omnis moriar, 
was the confidence of Horace. Petrarch was found dead 
with his head resting on a book. The Greek astronomer, 
Eratosthenes, died of voluntary starvation, caused by 
his regret for the loss of his eye-sight. The ancient 
Romans usually buried their dead near the great roads. 
Moliere died while acting one of his comedies. Titian 
died through accident at the age of ninety-nine. It was 
William Rufus who said no one ever heard of a king being 
drowned. Webster's pall-bearers were fisherman farmers, 
his neighbors. Walter Scott hated funerals, and said he 
was glad he should not see his own; his father loved to 
attend funerals. The Roman general Varus, whose army 
was annihilated by the Germans, committed suicide. Says 
Landor, "There are no fields of amaranth on this side the 
grave; there are no voices, O Rhodope, that are not soon 
mute, however tuneful; there is no* name, with whatever 
emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo is 
not faint at last." Tennyson died holding in his hand a 
volume of Shakspeare, open at a dirge in "Cymbeline." 
We possess a great man most, remarks Henry James, 
when we begin to look at him through the glass plate of 
death. The following is by Anna L. Barbauld, — 

"Say not Good Night, but in some brighter clime 
Bid me Good Morning." 

Robespierre resigned his magistracy on account of repug- 
nance to passing a capital sentence. Every great head, 
says Richter, goes to the grave with a whole library of 



94 LITERARY BREVITIES 

imprinted thoughts. Montaigne had great curiosity to 
know how men died, says George E. Woodberry. Shelley 
thinks the destiny of man can scarcely be so degraded, 
that he was born only to die. The ancients dreaded 
death; the Christians only dreaded dying, observes Hare. 
Edwin Booth could not grieve at death; it seemed to him 
the greatest boon the Almighty has given us. James 
Howell declares, that more men dig their graves with 
their teeth than with the tankard. Shelley wanted to die, 
that he "might solve the great mystery." 'Tis living ill 
that makes us fear to die, remarks some one. Zeno, the 
philosopher, taught that there are some things, canni- 
balism for instance, worse than death. At Buddhist 
funerals, boys carry little cages containing birds, which are 
released as symbols of the released souls. Nature her- 
self, thought Thoreau, has not provided the most graceful 
end for her creatures. Victor Hugo says of Death, — 

"I will not fear him like the common throng, 
But deck his scythe with garlands." 

It is Tolstoy's belief, that at death memory becomes 
extinct, which he thinks a great mercy. On the surrender 
of Hasdrubal's army his wife threw herself and her two 
infants into the flames. 

DECEIT 

WE should enjoy little pleasure, Rochefoucauld 
thinks, were we never to deceive ourselves. 
Balzac tells us of shrewd bankers and lawyers, with whom 
the omission of the dot over the letter "i" indicated that 
what was said in any written document was not meant. 
Some people want to hunt with the hounds and run with 
the hare. According to Napoleon's ethics, to promise and 



DECEIT 95 

not keep your promise is the way to get on in the world. 
Smollett's deceitful woman "now began to glue herself 
to the man's favor with the grossest adulation." Non 
trahit esca ficta praedam, is accredited to Jean Voute. 
Walter Scott is said to have written anonymous reviews 
of his own books. Bulwer declares, that no gift is rarer 
or more successful in the intrigues of life than the hypocrisy 
of frankness. Addison thinks a man's speech is much 
more easily disguised than his countenance. We are told 
by some one, that Louis XIV hesitated to carry finesse so 
far as direct falsehood, and was content to deceive, if 
possible, without directly lying. Rochefoucauld calls 
hypocrisy a homage which vice pays to virtue. From his 
chamber window in England a man saw a kitchen-maid 
put on a horse and carried around and around the yard. 
When he later asked the reason for this, he was informed 
by the groom, that they were about to take the animal 
to the fair to sell, and they wished to be able to say he 
had carried a lady. Says Shakspeare, "Let's write good 
angel on the devil's horn." The same also, "Doing in the 
figure of a lamb the feats of a lion." And again, "He that 
is giddy thinks the world turns round." Likewise, "And 
seem a saint when most I play the devil." Landor is 
authority for the saying, that it is only a weak wine that 
sends the cork to the ceiling. Bancroft declares, that 
nothing deceives like jealousy. This is from Shakspeare, — 

'"More water glideth by the mill 
Than wots the miller of." 

Racine thinks it lawful to deceive deceivers. In business, 
as Balzac thinks, the moment of danger is that where 
everything goes to a wish. Pope was eager for the dis- 
tinction of remarkable precocity, and was insincere enough 
to alter the dates of some of his writings, in order to 



96 LITERARY BREVITIES 

strengthen his claim. Spenser, Leigh Hunt, and Walt 
Whitman all wrote criticisms on their own works and pub- 
lished them anonymously. Voltaire's chief characteristic, 
according to Carlyle, was adroitness, he being the most 
adroit of all literary men. Balzac mentions mail-coach 
owners who set up a sham opposition coach to keep bona 
fide rivals out of the field. When Van Buren was first 
elected to congress, Rufus King said of him, "Within 
two weeks Van Buren will become perfectly acquainted 
with the views and feelings of every member, yet no one 
will know his." The tricky lawyer contrived to let his 
hat fall inside the door of heaven, and got St. Peter's 
permission to step inside for it. Says Shakspeare, — - 
"Purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight." Some one has 
designated Pope as a touchy, moody, intriguing little 
man, who could hardly drink tea without a stratagem. 
An old saying is, catch a miller, catch a thief. Macaulay 
says a reforming age is always fertile in imposters. Those 
who make themselves feared, says George Sand, always run 
the risk of being deceived. This from The Spectator, — 
"She smiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon 
the other's foot which was under the table." It is an old 
saying, that broad thongs are cut out of other people's 
leather. Goethe asserts, that no one is more a slave than 
the man who thinks himself free while he is not. Erasmus, 
when a boy, was caught stealing pears; after descending 
from the tree he limped off counterfeiting the manner of 
a poor lame lay brother, who was punished instead of 
the real culprit. Mark Hopkins, when a student at Wil- 
liams College, handed in a metaphysical composition half 
original and half taken bodily from the philosopher Reid. 
He put quotation marks around his own, but not that of 
Reid; the professor cut Reid's part all to pieces. 



DISCRETION 97 



DEEDS 



rr^HIS is from James Shirley, — 

"Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust." 

The following is from Martial, — 

"Yet, after all, in nothing you excel, 
Do all things prettily, but nothing well." 

Charles Kingsley is of the opinion, that actions will pave 
the way for motives as much as motives do for actions. 
Shakspeare says, — 

"My commission 
Is not to reason of the deed, but do it." 

DISCRETION 

THE unwise mouse took up its lodging in a cat's ear. 
It was Solomon's advice, neither to oppose the 
mighty nor go about to stop the current of a river. It is 
easier, says Bulwer, to climb a mountain than to level it. 
A good maxim is the old one, Quieta non movere. It is 
Bacon's assertion, that a tortoise on the right path will 
beat a racer on the wrong path. Apollo recommended 
his votaries not to rake up a fever by stirring Lake Cama- 
rina. It is an old dictum, that he who scrubs the head of 
an ass wastes his soap. A certain one being told that dis- 
cretion is the better part of valor, remarked, "It is the 
whole of it in my constitution." Balzac thinks that, for 
buildings as for men, position does everything. It is an 
old adage, that if you light a fire at both ends, the middle 
will shift for itself. Most delicate is the mob-queller's 
vocation, remarks Carlyle; wherein too much may be as 



98 LITERARY BREVITIES 

bad as not enough. Scott thinks that an admitted 
nuisance of ancient standing should not be abated with- 
out some caution. This from Pope, — "For fools rush 
in where angels fear to tread." Most men, John G. 
Brooks says, do not put their deepest opinions into print 
or state them before the public. George Meredith de- 
clares the axe to be better than decay. Turenne used to 
say he never spent time in regretting any mistake he had 
made, but set himself instantly and vigorously to repair 
it. George Eliot speaks of a keen youngster as one who 
will never carry a net out to catch the wind. Addison 
declares, that though a man has all other perfections, and 
wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the 
world. Scott says it is best sitting near the fire when the 
chimney smokes. John Selden advises wise men to say 
nothing in dangerous times. Thackeray considers ap- 
pearances as ruinous as guilt. Who was it that said, 
"When in doubt, abstain"? The old deacon never made 
paths until the snow had ceased falling. This aphorism 
is from Tasso, — "Things done in haste at leisure be re- 
pented." This one from Balzac, — "You can't have the 
omelet without breaking the egg." Says Moliere, — 
"Never full-gorge the hawk you wish to fly." The herd, 
observes Goethe, does not reflect that where there is no 
dog it is exposed to wolves. There is a Greek proverb to 
the effect, that to desire impossibilities is a sickness of the 
soul. Says Spenser, — 

"Oft fire is without smoke, 
And peril without show." 

Landor declares serenity to be no sign of security. Cheer- 
fulness out of season, Balzac asserts, is as bad as water 
poured into a sieve. Prudence, observes Cicero, is the 
safest shield. An indiscreet man, Addison thinks, is 



DISCRETION 99 

more hurtful than an ill-natured one. The following is 
from Milton, — 

"What boots it at one gate to make defense, 
And at another to let in the foe?" 

Better an empty house, it has been said, than a bad 
tenant. Let the night come before we praise the day, is 
an old proverb. The following is from Schiller, — 

"For truly is that nation to be feared, 
That, arms in hand, is temperate in its wrath." 

This is from the Talmud, — "If a word spoken in its 
time is worth one piece of money, silence in its time is 
worth two." Medio tutissimus ibis, is Ovid's advice. 
This from Tasso, — "For once the steed is stolen, we 
shut the door too late." From Shakspeare, — "Too 
swift arrives as tardy as too slow"; "Things sweet to 
taste prove in digestion sour." The strong man is one 
who does not say all he thinks. Balzac applauds the art 
of asking questions and saying little. Garrick asserts, 
that the devil is sooner raised than laid. Balzac speaks 
of a discreet chevalier who never let fall an epigram that 
might have closed a house to him. Some one criticises 
those who eat their white bread first. Racine said he 
couldn't hunt two hares at once. Heine observes, that 
the arrow belongs not to the archer when once it has left 
the bow, and the word no longer belongs to the speaker 
when once it has passed his lips. He who would travel 
far, says Racine, should spare his steed. James Howell 
remarks, that we have each two eyes and two ears, but one 
mouth. Seneca asks what wind will serve him that is not 
yet resolved upon his course. Gilbert Stuart, the painter, 
once had Commodore Hull for a sitter; he was, as usual, 
boastfully letting off his great social successes, when his 



100 LITERARY BREVITIES 

wife, with a handkerchief on her head, came in from the 
kitchen, not knowing that a stranger was present, and 
said, "Did you mean to have that leg of mutton boiled 
or roasted? " With great presence of mind Stuart replied, 
"Ask your mistress." Macaulay was ridiculed for his 
indiscretion in writing to his constituents on Windsor 
Castle paper. Dante remarks, that the food that is hard 
we hold in vain to the mouths of sucklings. He is not a 
fish to be caught without a worm, is from Balzac. The 
host, while waiting, makes it possible for his guest to 
weary for his dinner, remarks Scott. Let the fish chew 
the bait awhile, is quoted from somewhere. There are 
those with an iron hand in an iron glove, is anonymous. 
Beware the fury of a patient man, says Dryden. The 
same bids us beware disturbing a hornet's nest. Some one 
warns us, — 

"Though April skies be bright, 
Keep all your wrappers tight." 

It is the common infirmity of mankind, declares Machia- 
velli, in a calm to make no reckoning of a tempest. The 
Englishman visiting our Cambridge, asked Colonel Hig- 
ginson if he didn't think it rather a pity that all the really 
interesting Americans seemed to be dead. Cicero assures 
us, that the best pilots in great storms are sometimes 
admonished by passengers. Spoiling the ship for a half- 
penny worth of tar, is the way the English express false 
economy. Swift informs us, that every draper at first 
shows three or four pieces of poor stuff to set off the good 
ones. 



DOUBT 101 



DISEASE 

GLADSTONE is authority for the statement, that 
Homer never mentions diseases at all. Dr. John- 
son thinks it very difficult for a sick man not to be a scoun- 
drel. Balzac says sick people never know how sick they 
are. Caesar, Mahomet, and Napoleon were all epileptics. 
Cartier found that the Indians near Montreal had a cer- 
tain decoction that cured scurvy. Some one advises the 
use of three physicians — Dr. Quiet, Dr. Merriman, and 
Dr. Diet. 

DISGRACE 

BACON, whose lapses from good morals are well 
known, compared himself to Demosthenes, to Cicero, 
to Seneca, and to Marcus Livius, all of whom had been 
condemned for corrupt dealings as he had been, and had 
all recovered favor and position. 

DISGUST 

EXCESSIVE praise, Euripides declares, is apt to 
breed disgust. Balzac "would not stir that mud- 
heap." The same again, — "If a dish at table is not to 
our taste, there is no occasion to disgust others by men- 
tioning the fact." 

DOUBT 

CROMWELL'S epigram is to the effect, that nobody 
goes so far as the man who does not know where he 
is going. Examination, observes Balzac, leads to doubt. 
Shakspeare says it is a wise father that knows his own 
child. I may be wrong, says Sir George Jessel, and some- 
times am, but I have never any doubts. This, often 



102 LITERARY BREVITIES 

misquoted, is from Shakspeare, — "But yet I'll make 
assurance double sure." When in doubt mind your own 
business, is Elbert Hubbard's counsel. This excerpt is 
from Horace, — Credat Judaeus Apella. Doubt keeps 
pace with discoveries, Landor asserts. 

DRAMA 

WHAT is Shakspeare's, and what is not, is best de- 
termined by reading, not by acting; his best is 
beyond acting; inferior productions are sometimes made 
by acting. Daudet thinks actors do not die of old age, 
but that they cease to exist when they no longer command 
applause. The greatest writers put a little comedy into 
their tragedy. It is a remark of Coleridge, that Schiller, 
to produce effect, sets you a whole town on fire, and throws 
infants with their mothers into the flames, or locks up an 
old father in a tower; Shakspeare drops a handkerchief, 
and the same or greater effects follow. The mathe- 
matical Buxton once went to hear Garrick play; when 
asked what he thought of Garrick's performance, he re- 
plied, "I only saw a little man strut about the stage and 
repeat 5,956 words." Rogers thinks it remarkable that 
no poet before Shakspeare ever introduced a person walk- 
ing in sleep. iEgisthus and Clytemnestra are both killed 
behind the scenes, though their screams are heard by the 
audience; their corpses are then exposed to the specta- 
tors. What author besides Shakspeare could write thirty- 
eight plays without repeating any of his characters? The 
elder Booth acted Richard III to such perfection, that the 
audience would hiss. Landor asserts, that a good tragedy 
shows us that greater men than ourselves have suffered 
more severely and more unjustly. It is a remark of 
Seneca, that a player may represent fear, sadness, anger, 



DRAMA 103 

and the like, but can never come to express a blush. 
When Voltaire was instructing an actress in some tragic 
part, she said to him, "Were I to play in this manner, sir, 
they would say the devil was in me." "Very right," 
answered Voltaire, "an actress ought to have the devil 
in her." C. F. Richardson claims, that in range Shak- 
speare passes over the entire field of human nature, in- 
cluding both sexes, all ages and conditions, noting ethic 
peculiarities in the Roman plays or the barbaric petulances 
of the Celt in "Lear." Says the same again, "Leaving 
out the strictly subordinate characters, there are, in the 
plays of undoubted Shakspearian authorship, two hundred 
and forty-six distinctly marked personalities, an intel- 
lectual product far superior to that accomplished by any 
other man that ever lived." Lord Buckhurst, of the time 
of Elizabeth, was the author of "Gorboduc," the first 
tragedy written in the English language. Schlegel calls 
iEschylus the Phidias of tragedy. In versification, as in 
other respects, Shakspeare has clearly marked periods. 
Not even the gods could decide whether Orestes, by mur- 
dering his mother, Clytemnestra, in avenging the death of 
his father, Agamemnon, acted justly. Next to reading 
the "Agamemnon" of ^Eschylus, I would choose to read 
what Schlegel says about it. The claim made by some, 
that Shakspeare allows excellence of versification to cor- 
respond somewhat to the quality of the characters, is not 
verified in " Othello " at least, though possibly prose comes 
chiefly from the mouths of inferior characters. Some 
read Shakspeare solely for his beauty of diction; some for 
his excellence in characterization; and still others for his 
ethical teaching. As in the Greek New Comedy no rep- 
utable young woman was allowed to come upon the 
stage, the whole play often turned upon a marriage with, 
or a passion for, a young woman who was never once seen. 



104 LITERARY BREVITIES 

The true comedy is said always to end in serious marriage. 
Schlegel declares, that among the French, versification of 
dramatic poetry was what decided the fate of a com- 
position. Concerning Corneille's late dramas, Schlegel 
thought we might as well make a tragedy out of a game 
of chess. Racine, it is thought, might, like Shakspeare, 
have excelled in comedy as well as in tragedy, if he had 
tried it. Coleridge pronounced Kean's acting like reading 
Shakspeare by flashes of lightning. Sophocles declared 
that iEschylus did what he ought to do, but did it with- 
out knowing. The characters of iEschylus, Sophocles, 
and Shakspeare suffer for their sins; Dry den reforms his 
bad characters. Symonds defines the drama as that form 
of art which combines all kinds of poetry in one. Sy- 
monds confidently asserts, that fifty-three years was 
sufficient for the complete development of the greatest 
work of art the world has ever witnessed — the drama 
as produced by iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. 
But for the accident of printing, we might now possess 
but few of the plays of Shakspeare. Cordelia in " Lear " 
and Ophelia in "Hamlet," though appearing but little, are 
yet very important and impressive characters. According 
to Julian Hawthorne, iEschylus may properly be pro- 
nounced the creator of the drama; he introduced a second 
actor, thus changing recitation into dialogue; in all his 
plays it is thought he enacted the part of the hero. The 
Greek tragic poets, in their work of composition, were 
rivals and contended for a prize. It may be that Euripides 
suffers in the estimation of the world, because a large 
amount of his composition has been preserved, bad and 
good alike, while only a small part, and probably the best, 
of the dramas of ^Eschylus and Sophocles has come down 
to us. In general, iEschylus employed but two actors 
for each play. Wallenstein, the Austrian hero of the 



DRAMA 105 

Thirty Years' War, and who was defeated at Lutzen by 
Gustavus Adolphus, has been called the greatest dramatic 
character in German literature. Shakspeare's downright 
villains are lago and Richard III. According to Schlegel, 
Ben Jonson's productions are solid and regular edifices, 
before which, however, the clumsy scaffolding still re- 
mains, to interrupt and prevent us from viewing the archi- 
tecture with ease, and receiving from it a harmonious 
impression. Lessing wrote his dramas in prose, though 
his last, "Nathan the Wise," is in verse, and is, on this 
account, more successful than the prose ones. The Greek 
dramatists would not use prose even in comedies. Macau- 
lay thinks the comedy of actual life beyond all comedy; 
the same thing was said by Le Sage. Symonds calls 
Antigone the most perfect female character in Greek 
poetry. There have been five generations of Jeffersons 
on the stage. Shakspeare and Moliere both acted parts 
in their own plays. William Winter states, that Pepys 
first saw women as actors in 1661. It is known that Shak- 
speare himself played the part of the Ghost in "Hamlet," 
and that of Adam in "As You Like It." Symonds thinks 
the Protestant Reformation prepared the way for the 
Elizabethan drama, just as the Persian wars prepared the 
way for the Greek drama. To please Charles II, Shak- 
speare's tragedies were made to end happily. Balzac 
thinks the real dramas of life are not in circumstances, but 
in feelings; that they are played in the heart. It is a 
remark of May Sinclair, that iEschylus left the edges of 
his tragedies a little rough, and that God leaves them so 
sometimes when He is making a big thing. Shakspeare 
created, or touched up, seven hundred characters. Irving 
played Shylock over one thousand times. Brander 
Matthews is of the opinion, that Victor Hugo is deficient 
in the two chief qualities of a great dramatic poet, — in 



106 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the power of creating characters true to nature, and in 
unfailing elevation of thought. Charlotte Cushman's 
advice to young Mary Anderson was, "Begin at the top." 
The practise of calling the author before the curtain seems 
to have had its inception in the case of Voltaire. Walter 
Raleigh thinks tragedy inconceivable without happiness 
for its background. Trollope says crowded audiences 
generally make good performers. Lamb asserts, that 
Shakspeare's "Lear" cannot be acted. 

DREAMS 

WERE we to dream the same thing every night, 
Pascal thinks it would affect us as much as the 
objects we see every day. The same says, "We often 
dream that we dream." Swift declares the worst of dreams 
to be, that one wakes in just the humor they leave one in. 
We are near awakening when we dream that we dream, 
says Novalis. 

DUELS 

JOHN RANDOLPH quarreled with a fellow-student 
over the pronunciation of a word, fought a duel 
with him, and killed him. Gourgaud wanted to fight a 
duel with Walter Scott for his severe treatment of Napo- 
leon. Among the Romans, instead of resorting to the 
duel, the two men who were at enmity with each other 
proved their courage by appearing at the head of the 
army in the next engagement, to fight against the com- 
mon foe. George Meredith asserts, that one duel on 
behalf of a woman is a reputation for her for life; and 
that two are a notoriety. When Mark Antony chal- 
lenged Augustus to fight a duel, the latter answered, 
that if Antony was weary of life, he might find many 



DUTY 107 

other ways to end it than by his sword. Some think 
men learn the art of fence in vain, if they never show their 
skill in a duel. 

DUTY 

CARLYLE thinks the first duty of man is still that 
of subduing fear. Southey used to say, that the 
moment anything assumed the shape of a duty, Cole- 
ridge felt himself incapable of doing it. The following is 
from Emerson, — 

"So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When duty whispers low, 'Thou must/ 
The youth replies, 'I can.' " 

It was said of the Athenians, that to do their duty was 
their only holiday. Some think there is no merit in per- 
forming one's duty. George Sand declares, that happi- 
ness is not to be sought anywhere but in the fulfilment of 
duty. Terence insists, that it is not sufficient to do your 
duty, but that you must win the world's applause as 
well. This from Milton, — 

"Who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best." 

An incident is related of a man appearing on the field 
of battle where the Duke of Wellington was; being rebuked 
for rashness, the man rejoined, "Your grace is in the same 
danger." "Yes," said the Duke, "but I am doing my 
duty"; it was just at this moment that a ball struck the 
unfortunate man dead. "Duty" was Wellington's fa- 
vorite word; "glory" was Napoleon's. Do thy best, and 
leave the rest, is a good motto. Bacon defines duty as 
a word used of a mind well disposed towards others; 
virtue as a word used of a mind well formed and composed 



108 LITERARY BREVITIES 

within itself. Lafcadio Hearn thinks the true way to 
attempt an enduring work is to begin it as a duty. Nel- 
son's last words were, "I have done my duty." It is an 
aphorism of William Black, that one of the great lessons 
of life is to learn, not to do what one likes, but to like what 
one does. Dumas thinks it humiliating to be thanked 
for doing one's duty. 

ECONOMY 

THE common people, observes Balzac, have 
ten ways of making money, and a dozen ways 
of spending it. Theodore Parker was said, 
facetiously perhaps, to be so economical that, for the sav- 
ing of ink, he would never cross a "t" nor dot an "i." 
Keep your land, and your land will keep you, is an old 
piece of advice. When a junior at Harvard, Emerson 
waited on the juniors' table, at commons, thus paying a 
part of his board. 

EDUCATION 

PUPILS bad in one school are sometimes good when 
transferred to another. According to the law of 
apperception, no two persons can have precisely the same 
idea of anything. Herbert Spencer would never give a 
child anything it cried for. Goethe disliked grammar ex- 
ceedingly, and only learned Latin willingly because the 
first book he studied was in rhyme. The Greeks culti- 
vated the ear; the Romans the eye. Some children de- 
velop late, and their parents are unduly anxious about 
them. Pestalozzi boasted that his son, who had passed 
his eleventh year, could neither read nor write. Jonathan 
Edwards practised literary composition as a means of 
mental culture. If a man reads very hard he will have 



EDUCATION 109 

little time for thought, says R. L. Stevenson. It is the 
belief of Dr. Harris, that an act is educative when first 
learned, and then only. Learning is not accumulation, 
but assimilation, thinks Col. Higginson. Most persons 
are at some time or other dissatisfied with their educa- 
tion, though they may be at last convinced that it is, all 
things considered, good. Greek, sir, said Dr. Johnson, 
is like lace, — every man gets as much of it as he can. 
Amiel's slur against the habit of dissecting literature as the 
schools do, is implied in this: to study the statue minutely, 
he says, we pulverize it. There's no pause at perfection, 
says Browning. It is Bulwer's advice, in science to read 
the newest books, in literature the oldest. Taming a fox 
takes away his sagacity. Educational reforms often come 
from those who are not professional teachers. Locke, who 
had no children, wrote a valuable treatise on how to 
bring up children. Paracelsus boasted, that he could 
make a man live four hundred years or more, if he could 
have the bringing of him up from infancy. When I 
hear a new book talked about, said Rogers, or have it 
pressed upon me, I read an old one. I find out what 
the "best sellers" are, and then read something else. 
He who knows only his side of the case, knows little of 
that, says John Stuart Mill. Eupolis said of Socrates, 
"I hate the beggar, who is eternally talking, and who has 
debated every question upon earth except where to get 
his dinner." In managing a bad boy in school, it is worth 
a great deal to know that the boy's parents are with you. 
There is no escape from trouble and anxiety in any busi- 
ness. The best means of forejudging what you are 
likely to experience next year, is to review the year past. 
It is a great thing in life, says Weir Mitchell, to learn how 
to forget wisely. According to Emerson, the one pru- 
dence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation. 



110 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Learning and arms, declares Bacon, have flourished in 
the same persons and ages. Seneca feared the man of 
one book. Goethe thought one ought every day at least 
to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, 
and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. 
Socrates learned to dance when an old man. Safety 
induces culture, says Browning. According to Aristotle, 
the mind reaches its prime at the age of forty-nine. Who 
knows most doubts most, asserts Browning. If a boy is 
not proficient as a measurer of wood, the farmer thinks 
him totally ignorant of mathematics. Edward Everett 
Hale, during his college course, read eighty novels a 
year. An eminent English judge declared private schools 
to be poor creatures, and public schools sad dogs. Lord 
Chesterfield thought nothing so interesting as maps. In 
the early part of the 17th century, in England, a lawyer, 
a physician, or a divine was looked upon with surprise 
if he could not read music and sing. If every man could 
hit upon his natural calling, geniuses would be more nu- 
merous than they now are. Music was a favorite recrea- 
tion with Jefferson. Labor is God's education, says 
Emerson. Off his own beat, Carlyle's opinions were of 
no value. The man who has a prodigy of a son thinks 
every child capable of the same brilliant achievements. 
There is nothing hard, declares Seneca, but custom makes 
it easy. According to Browning, 'tis the taught already 
that profits by teaching. How easy it is for some men, 
who have forgotten the aspirations of their youth, to ad- 
vise the confining of common school instruction to the 
3 R's! One may know a man that has never conversed 
in the world, it is said, by his excess of good breeding. 
It is Richter's rule in Education, that no power should 
be weakened, but that its counterbalancing power should 
be strengthened. Bacon thought the educational methods 



EDUCATION 111 

of the Jesuits superior to all others. Carlyle was edu- 
cated by his father against the advice of friends and 
neighbors. Balzac criticizes the ordinary imperfect 
school education, which develops great ambitions and 
little capacity for realizing them. Garfield thought it 
wisdom to be fit for more than the thing we are now 
doing. Professor Woodberry says Hawthorne had early 
learned the lesson of "doing without." Sciences can be 
taught, asserts Richter, genius can only be aroused. It 
is Locke's warning, that he who sinks his vessel by over- 
loading it, though it be with gold and silver and precious 
stones, will give the owner but an ill account of his voy- 
age. The chief advantage of a debating society is, that 
it offers the occasion of thoroughly studying a definite 
subject. We grow weak by striking at random, says 
Landor. As is the case with most men, Locke was dis- 
satisfied with his education. It is Herbert Spencer's idea, 
that the aim of education should be to produce a self- 
governing being. The meaning of culture, says Matthew 
Arnold, is to know the best that has been thought and 
said in the world. Goethe declares, that we retain from 
our studies only that which we practically apply. Fallen 
pride learns condescension, says Schiller. To be a stu- 
dent one wants the stimulus of sympathy, remarks George 
Eliot. Modern education, according to Hamerton, is 
a beginning of many things, and is little more than a 
beginning. Euclid told the king there was no royal way 
to geometry. A certain English lord considered all men 
uninformed who had not received a university educa- 
tion. China produced in all nine classics, a knowledge 
of which still constitutes a liberal education. Dr. John- 
son is of the opinion, that we oppose what is new, because 
we are unwilling to be taught. According to Miinster- 
berg, an American physician opens his office three years 



112 LITERARY BREVITIES 

later than his German colleague of equal education. 
Montaigne said he could not write so that he could read 
it himself. Steele ridicules the educators who put you 
to prove that snow is white. Aristotle was the most 
learned man among the Greeks; the elder Pliny the most 
learned among the Romans. Sydney Smith and John 
Stuart Mill were strenuous advocates of the intellectual 
culture of women. It is said always to be more work 
to mine gold than coal. Pestalozzi, in 1764, when eighteen 
years old, read Rousseau's " Emile " and was inspired by it. 
It was a saying of Pestalozzi, that gold is not consumed, 
but purified, by fire. There are many upon whom Pes- 
talozzi's "Leonard and Gertrude" makes no deep impres- 
sion. Balzac thinks, that, if Paganini had passed three 
days without studying, he would have become an ordi- 
nary violinist. Literature is the teacher's compensa- 
tion for drudgery; it seasons his daily life with the "sweet 
serenity of books." Fenelon's delightful book on the 
"Education of Girls" was originally intended as a set of 
rules for the government of his little family school. The 
English statesman, Charles Fox, when he was appointed 
secretary of state, took lessons in penmanship, because 
some one ridiculed his handwriting. It has been truly 
said, that learning is better than house and lands. In 
the "Upton Letters" we are aptly reminded, that, in edu- 
cation, it is better to encourage aptitudes than to try 
merely to correct deficiencies. The dyer's hand, it has 
been said, is subdued to whatever it works in. Some one 
wittily ridicules the principle of education which finds 
out what a boy can't do and then makes him do it. It 
has been remarked by some one, that in education it 
matters more which way one's face is set than how fast 
one proceeds. In the Boston Latin School, at one time, 
the class was called after the name of the brightest boy 



EDUCATION 113 

in it. We are never done with cutting our eye-teeth, 
says Lowell. Canon Cureton had a son at Westminster 
School, and whenever the canon preached too long a 
sermon, the boys thrashed the son. The lessons we learn 
when we do not know that we are studying, affirms Henry 
van Dyke, are often the pleasantest, and not always the 
least important. Goethe recognizes the high value of his 
errors. Arlo Bates says each reader must be his own 
health board in the choice of books. According to H. W. 
Dresser, all healthful changes are evolutionary, not revo- 
lutionary. It is James Howell who tells us, that a 
stumble makes one take a firmer footing. According to 
Rousseau, a child's characteristics should not be changed; 
we must make the best of the character nature gives him. 
It is recorded of a boy, that he was allowed to do any- 
thing but cross a certain brook. When E. L. Godkin's 
father took him to a school in England, he made but one 
stipulation, namely, that his son should never be flogged. 
The Spectator assures us, that a little negligence can 
spoil us, but great industry is necessary to improve us. 
George Eliot asserts, that our deeds determine us as 
much as we determine our deeds. They are best taught, 
observes Montaigne, who are best able to censure and 
curb their own liberty. From Landor we learn, that 
there is in the moral straits a current from right to wrong, 
but no reflux from wrong to right. Again Landor says, 
that the wisest of us have our catechism to learn. Sir 
Philip Sidney observes, that the mathematician might 
draw forth a straight line with a crooked heart. Ellen 
Terry thinks the parts we play influence our characters 
somewhat. According to Heine, the love of beauty and 
goodness and magnanimity may often be imparted by 
education, but a love of sport is in the blood. The chief 
part of original sin, thought Erasmus, is temptation and 



114 LITERARY BREVITIES 

bad example. He is the best man, according to Xeno- 
phon, who is always studying how to improve, and he is 
the happiest who finds that he is improving. Carlyle 
says a healthy human soul can stand a great deal of rub- 
bish. John Stuart Mill asserts, that a pupil from whom 
nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does 
all he can. We are advised, that it is always safe to 
learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to instruct, 
even our friends. When Emerson was in Harvard, a 
student was forbidden going to the theatre, on a 
penalty of ten dollars. We know the consequences of 
unnecessary physic, says Burke. The last words of 
old Dr. Adams, a teacher of Edinburgh, when his mind 
was delirious, were, "But it grows dark, very dark; the 
boys may dismiss." The over-education of Queen Mary, 
at a very early age, was injurious in that it produced mel- 
ancholy in her later life. We read " Paradise Lost " as a 
task, declares Dr. Johnson. We are informed by Vol- 
taire, that Pope could hardly read French, and spoke not 
one syllable of that language. For truly one must learn 
ere one can teach, is anonymous. It has been estimated 
that practically one-half the adults of England, ten years 
after the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria, could 
neither read nor write. Chesterton speaks of an educated 
upstart as a man who could quote Beaumarchais, but 
could not pronounce him. Lord Chatham was an Eton- 
ian who spoke ill of that famous school; he said he scarcely 
ever knew a boy who was not cowed for life at Eton. 
It is a decided relief, amid the usual dryness of pedagog- 
ical literature, to light upon delectable John Adams, 
whose discussion of Herbart is as good as a comedy. The 
first six colleges established in the United States are in 
order — Harvard, in 1637; William and Mary, in 1692; 
Yale, in 1701; Princeton, in 1746; Columbia, in 1754; and 



EDUCATION 115 

the University of Pennsylvania, in 1779. Controversial- 
ists should keep cool; in the moment of passion aroused 
by unfavorable criticism, they are liable to make sweep- 
ing assertions which are open to attack by specialists, and 
thus to subject themselves to ridicule; Sir William Ham- 
ilton is an example of such an one. The great importance 
of diffusing a taste for the best in literature is, that who- 
ever has once appreciated and loved a classic, is ever after- 
wards in no danger from trash. A grammarian, says 
Poe, is never excusable on the ground of good intentions. 
Some persons, Aristotle states, derive a stronger habit 
from a single impression than from oft-repeated ones. 
Charles Reade speaks of a man who had everything to 
learn, except what he had to unlearn. It is said of Bal- 
zac, that he had a wonderful facility for hurriedly absorb- 
ing ideas in reading; that his eye embraced six or eight 
lines at a time; his memory has been likened to a vise. 
The highest kind of knowledge is not wide, but self-depend- 
ent, says Miinsterberg. Bacon was glad to light his 
torch at any man's candle. Macaulay could neither 
swim nor row nor drive nor skate nor shoot. Kossuth 
learned English by reading and studying Shakspeare. 
McCarthy says he never knew another man of the edu- 
cated class who knew so little of literature as Parnell. 
Scott, when at school, stood at the middle of his class, 
a place he was the better contented with, as it chanced 
to be near the fire. Self-conquest is true victory, asserts 
Goethe. Until within twenty-one years of the signing 
of the Declaration of Independence, corporal punishment 
was in vogue at Harvard College. Speaking of a dis- 
agreeable character, Heine is led to think of the rose which 
was always watered with vinegar, and so lost its sweet 
fragrance and faded early. The same writer thinks the 
Romans would never have found time to conquer the 



116 LITERARY BREVITIES 

world if they had been obliged first to learn the Latin 
language. It is a remark of Bliss Perry, that the young 
man, upon entering his profession, finds himself ranked 
at once by his power to assimilate the professional experi- 
ence of older men. If we read too quickly or too slowly, 
says Pascal, we understand nothing. Gladstone thinks 
Latin is in great part useful because it is difficult. At 
the time Prescott was an undergraduate at Harvard, 
the curriculum there is said to have been of less variety and 
range than that of a high school at the present time. It 
is Joubert's opinion, that in the uneducated classes the 
women are superior to the men; in the upper classes, 
on the contrary, that the men are superior to the women; 
and that the reason for this is, because men are more 
often rich in acquired virtues, and women in natural 
virtues. Montaigne advises, that the discipline of pain 
should be part of every boy's education, for the reason 
that everyone in his day may be called upon to undergo 
the torture. The value of learning a dead language rather 
than a living one, declares Latrobe, is, that it is acquired, 
not in loose conversation, but in reading and analyzing 
authors who are perfectly correct in their diction. It was 
Landor's notion, that if a man had a large mind, he could 
afford to let the greater part of it lie fallow. Culture, 
says Matthew Arnold, is properly described as having 
its origin, not in curiosity, but in the love of perfection. 
It was the rule of the Jesuits, that after an application to 
study for two hours, the mind of the student should be 
unbent by some relaxation. It was Adam Smith's belief, 
that the most grateful and soothing amusement of old 
age is a renewal of the acquaintance with the favorite 
authors of one's youth. Until the year 1773, the stu- 
dents' names appeared in the Harvard catalogue in the 
order of social standing. According to Matthew Ar- 



EDUCATION 117 

nold, culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of the high- 
est possible value in stemming the common tide of men's 
thoughts in wealthy and industrious communities. In 
the simpler school life of earlier times, John Fiske reminds 
us, there were not so many subjects to be half-learned as 
there are now. Pascal points out the fact, that there are 
no two square numbers one of which is double the other. 
May Sinclair, referring to the speech of a certain cold- 
blooded person, says every sentence sounded as though 
it had been passed through a refrigerator. German is 
an open sesame to a large culture, remarks Lowell. When 
one wearies from physical exertion, observes Dr. Way- 
land, he is warned in time to desist, but weariness from 
overwork of the mind is far more dangerous, because then 
the weariness is often not perceptible until it is too late. 
Even a Latin school dunce is declared to be different from 
any other dunce. When girls were first admitted to the 
Boston High School, it was, by vote of the school board, 
to occupy the seats made vacant by the boys in summer 
only, when many of the boys were kept at home to work. 
Richelieu, with some horror, imagines what a state would 
be, if all its subjects were learned men. The Admirable 
Crichton, late in the 16th century, amazed the Venetian 
senate by an eloquent harangue on the absurdity of edu- 
cation. Talleyrand said of the English public school 
education, "It is the best I have ever seen, and it is 
abominable." It is Professor Woodberry's idea, that to 
turn a boy loose in a library is to give him the best of 
all opportunities — the opportunity for self-education. 
Henry James speaks of certain people who read novels 
as an exercise in skipping. Our religion, education, 
and even our fears, declares Dresser, are prepared for us 
by other minds. It is a great mistake to think that boys 
should understand all they learn, says Dr. Arnold. After 



118 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Wordsworth and Coleridge had failed to get the collar 
off the horse's head, the servant girl showed them how, 
by turning it upside down. To aid her in playing Ophelia, 
Ellen Terry used to go to a madhouse and study the 
subjects there. Scarcely any person, says Macaulay, 
has become a great debater without long practise and 
many failures. Thackeray speaks of certain arguments 
of a woman for which "she had chapter and verse." 
Whatever you study, asserts Hamerton, some one will 
consider that particular study a waste of time. Much 
depends upon when and where we read a book, observes 
Lamb. Read the best books first, insists Thoreau, or you 
may not have a chance to read them at all. Assuredly 
we spend too much labor and outlay in preparation 
for life, remarks Goethe. According to William James, 
we can see no farther into a generalization than just so 
far as our previous acquaintance with particulars enables 
us to take it in. In college, the women do as well as 
the men, says President Jordan, but not in the university. 
Some one has remarked, that Bayard Taylor had traveled 
more and seen less than any man on earth. Young sol- 
diers, in the Roman camp, learned to use their weapons 
by fencing against a post in the place of an enemy. Dr. 
Johnson thinks the most successful students make their 
advance in knowledge by short flights, between which 
the mind lies at rest. Democritus, we are told, put 
out his eyes in order that he might philosophize better. 
There is not much satisfaction in listening to a German 
play where you understand but the one word "ja." Ed- 
ward Everett Hale once asked his father why, when he 
was at Williams College, he studied Hebrew in addition 
to Greek and Latin; his father replied, that there was 
nothing else to study. Hawthorne, speaking of the poet 
Tupper, said that he was so entirely satisfied with himself 



EDUCATION 119 

that he took the admiration of all the world for granted. 
The strongest leg, says Ibsen, is that which stands most 
alone. The Greek word for school means leisure. In 
the Scriptures we read, that much study is a weariness 
of the flesh. Popular enlightenment is not everything; 
it is indispensable to the perpetuity of a republic. When 
Franklin visited London, circulating libraries were un- 
known there. It is Addison's declaration, that the mind 
that lies fallow but a single day sprouts up in follies that 
are only to be killed by constant and assiduous culture. 
Only evil grows of itself, while for goodness we want 
effort and courage, asserts Amiel. Sowing one's wild oats 
originally meant that noxious and ineradicable weeds 
would spring up later on. Theodore Parker thought 
the common school of America the cradle of all her great- 
ness. It is the height of wisdom to seek constant improve- 
ment, however foolish it may be to aim at perfection. 
Good morals and knowledge, says Hume, are almost 
always inseparable in every age, though not in every in- 
dividual. After reading Gibbon's " Rome," one is not the 
same man he was before. The best way to do away with 
cheap literature is to do away with the demand for it 
by educating the people to higher tastes. In all other 
pleasures, says Bacon, there is satiety, but in knowledge 
there is no satiety. Every adult citizen of the United 
States should read The Federalist. The product of na- 
ture is an animal, and not a civilized man. Our selfish- 
ness often in the end proves altruistic; since the more we 
improve ourselves the greater our influence for good over 
others. Bancroft remarks, that our fathers of the Revo- 
lution, in a few of the states, conceived the correct idea 
of binding up their public schools in their public life, 
instead of merely doling out a bounty to the poor. Haz- 
litt affirms, that knowledge is pleasure as well as power. 



120 LITERARY BREVITIES 

It is a dictum of Herbert Spencer, that the child must 
be armed against the future. The best protection the 
rich man has in the peaceful possession of his goods is 
in the education of the poor, who are thereby taught to 
respect the rights of others' property. In the Talmud it 
is stated, that when a man teaches his son no trade, it 
is as if he taught him highway robbery. General enlight- 
enment counteracts despotism and centralization, and 
dethrones physical power. It is by the government and 
education of himself, asserts Cousin, that a man is great. 
What is educated for the age, Richter insists, is worse 
than the age. Weir Mitchell thinks books should be 
labeled to be read at this or that age. If the views of 
educators are to be taken seriously, the education of 
girls, who are to become the mothers of the future genera- 
tions, is of the first importance. It is Herbert Spencer's 
idea, that the function which education has to discharge 
is to prepare us for complete living. Says Carlyle, "That 
there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for 
knowledge, this I call a tragedy." Education, as some 
one states, attempts to change what is into what ought 
to be. Allen Cunningham declares, that the educa- 
tion we miss in youth we rarely obtain in age. It is 
astonishing, remarks Scott, how far even half an hour a 
day regularly bestowed on one object will carry a man 
in making himself master of it. Senator Hoar believed 
that self-government with universal suffrage could not 
be maintained long in a Northern state, or in any coun- 
try in the world, without ample provision for education. 
Education has been called another nature. Difficulties, 
some one observes, make our minds strong, as toil does 
our bodies. To instruct woman, remarks Hamerton, 
is to instruct man. It is said to be easy to follow the 
animal or the intellectual life — difficult to combine the 



EDUCATION 121 

two. Pestalozzi declares the animal man to be the work 
of nature, the social man to be the work of society, but 
the moral man must be the work of himself. The nobil- 
ity of France in the time of Diderot opposed the educa- 
tion of the peasant, on the ground that, if he knew how to 
read, it would be more difficult to oppress him. Haw- 
thorne thought the world was accumulating too many 
materials for knowledge, that we do not recognize as 
rubbish what is really rubbish. It is Poe's notion, that 
happiness is not in knowledge, but in the acquisition of 
knowledge. John Adams, the writer on pedagogy, thinks 
education makes a greater difference between man and 
man, than nature has made between man and brute. 
'Tis early practise only makes the master, says Schiller. 
From the age of twelve the Spartan boy had to go bare- 
foot, summer and winter; his only mental culture was 
in music and poetry. The Roman Empire, made up of 
many nationalities, very much as our nation is, had no 
system of popular education like ours to unify and nation- 
alize it. Voltaire decries giving a Lacedaemonian educa- 
tion to a child destined to live in Paris. Those who 
are denied the higher gratifications, states Herbert Spen- 
cer, fall back upon the lower. There is no darkness but 
ignorance, is Shakspeare's. Montesquieu states, that 
the first motive which ought to impel us to study, is the 
desire to augment the excellence of our nature, and to 
render an intelligent being yet more intelligent. Every 
day is lost, declares Beethoven, in which we do not learn 
something useful. Better to be a human being dissatis- 
fied, says J. S. Mill, than a pig satisfied; better be Soc- 
rates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. There is as much 
difference, some one has observed, between a lettered and 
an unlettered man as between the living and the dead. 
Learning gives men a true sense of their frailty, according 



122 LITERARY BREVITIES 

to Bacon. The trials of school are among the most effec- 
tive influences in forming after character. If a father 
had not taught his son some art or profession, Solon 
relieved the son from all obligation to maintain him in 
old age. Knowledge always increases; it is like fire, 
which must be kindled by some external agent, but 
which will afterwards propagate itself, Dr. Johnson de- 
clares. Down to the generation just preceding Socra- 
tes, nothing was taught to Grecian youth except to read, 
to remember, to recite musically and rhythmically, and 
to comprehend poetical composition, — this according to 
Grote. It is a saying of Goethe, that the art of right 
living is like all arts; the capacity alone is born with us; 
it must be learned and practised with incessant care. If 
my children are to die out of the course of nature before 
their parents, declared Sir Thomas More, I would rather 
they died well instructed than ignorant. Tolstoy says 
it is difficult to hinder parents from bringing up their 
children to be different from what they are themselves. 
George Moore thinks it the first law of life to discover 
our best gifts from nature and to cultivate those gifts. 
The greatest and most important difficulty of human 
science is the education of children, thinks Montaigne. 
Socrates never aspired to the laurels of authorship, says 
Dr. North; he was content to be an oral teacher. When 
appointed professor of anatomy and physiology at Har- 
vard, Dr. Holmes said he occupied, not a chair in the 
college, but a settee. Better saw wood, said Emerson, 
better sow hemp, better hang with it after it is sown, 
than sow the seeds of instruction. "The schoolmaster 
is abroad," that is, is everywhere at work. When a teacher 
in Watertown, Theodore Parker once kept a boy after 
school for punishment, but the boy looked so much like 
his sister, a lovely girl with whom Parker used to read 



EDUCATION 123 

and take long walks, that he kissed the little reprobate 
and let him go. Probably no profession offers at once 
so good an opening for the impecunious college graduate 
as teaching. Racine was savage in his denunciation of 
his college instructors. When Eliot was made presi- 
dent of Harvard, Lowell wrote to Norton, "We have a 
real captain at last." It is not knowledge, says Matthew 
Arnold, that we have to teach, but the means of gaining 
knowledge. A wise questioning has been called the half 
of knowledge. The teacher, if sufficiently introspective, 
must often find the apparent disorder and restlessness 
of the school only the reflection of his own moodiness. 
When Tyndall told Carlyle of his intention to address a 
large boys' school, Carlyle warned him not to tell them 
anything which was not true. John Wesley's mother, 
who had nineteen children, was a severe disciplinarian, 
and in particular taught her children to "cry softly." A 
man once undertook to teach Sanskrit, of which language 
he knew nothing; he said he used to learn as much be- 
fore breakfast as he could teach between ten and twelve; 
and that he allowed no one to ask questions. Henry 
van Dyke asserts, that life has no finer lesson to teach 
than how to leave off. It is Hare's advice, that they who 
have children to educate should keep in mind that boys 
are to become men and that girls are to become women. 
In matters of discipline, Dr. Arnold almost always con- 
sulted his associate teachers. Dr. Arnold taught prin- 
cipally by questioning; he seldom gave information 
except as a kind of reward for an answer; his explanations 
were as short as possible. Some one wittily alludes to 
a teacher who explained a thing by something less known. 
Stonewall Jackson, when an instructor at the Lexington 
Military Institute, once criticized a student's solution 
of a certain problem; afterwards, having become con- 



124 LITERARY BREVITIES 

vinced that he himself had been wrong, he walked a 
mile in the rain to apologize to the boy for his mistake. 
Socrates was accustomed to ask questions, but did not 
answer them, professing not to know. Dionysius took 
lessons in geometry from Plato; they formed their figures 
in sand spread on the floor. A schoolmaster, some one 
has observed, is a man who does not take the voyage of 
life himself, but stands on the gangway of the steamer 
to pass those along who are going to take it. From the 
poet Thomson we have, "to teach the young idea how to 
shoot." Erasmus speaks of some of his teachers as being 
"destructive of good intellects." In China, on rainy 
days, the teacher is expected to carry the children to 
school on his back, that they may not spoil their clothes 
and make their mothers trouble. Mencius declares, that 
the ancient Chinese exchanged sons, and one taught the son 
of another. There is said to be in China classical author- 
ity against having a son taught by his father. A girl said 
to her teacher, "I can do and understand this perfectly, 
if you only won't explain it." When, after the Peace of 
Dresden, Frederick the Great returned to Berlin, his 
first thought was to visit his old schoolmaster, De Jandun, 
who was at the point of death. In Bronson Alcott's 
school, when a bad child would make a noise, he would 
shake a good one, thus punishing the bad one by allowing 
him to see a good one suffer; sometimes he would even 
punish himself. All methods of teaching are good and 
all are bad, says Tolstoy; the talent and ability of the 
teacher are at the foundation of any method. A good 
pupil, says Turgenieff, perceives the errors of his teacher, 
but he respectfully holds his peace about them, for those 
very errors are of service to him and direct him in the 
right way. Huxley is called the father of modern lab- 
oratory instruction. Emerson gave his boys a holiday 



EDUCATION 125 

on the occasion of Webster's address at Bunker Hill; he 
was afterwards much chagrined to find that not one of 
them went to hear the great orator. In teaching, it is 
said to be wiser often to suggest to the imagination than 
to satiate it. It was a chief accusation of Socrates against 
the Sophists, that they taught for money. A great deal 
of knowledge, says Howells, comes from doing, and a 
a great deal more from doing over. Confucius would 
teach only bright pupils; he used to declare, that when he 
had presented one corner of a subject and the listener 
could not from it learn the other three, he would not repeat 
the lesson. The art of spoiling, declares George Eliot, 
is within the reach of the dullest faculty. At the age of 
twenty John Adams was a schoolmaster. Lady Cummings, 
who lived near a boys' school in Edinburgh, sent a request 
that the master should not have the boys all flogged 
at once, as the noise of the concord was really dreadful. 
It is Dr. Johnson's slight dig at pedagogy, that while a 
teacher is considering which of two things he should teach 
a child first, another boy has learned them both. There 
are teachers who can make any subject interesting to their 
pupils. Landor observes, with but little truth it would 
seem, that men have seldom loved their teachers. The 
teacher's motto is, — "God makes, man shapes." Sir 
William Hamilton used to assert, that a man never knows 
anything until he has taught it in some way, whether 
orally or by writing a book. The Germans thought Pes- 
talozzi understood man better than men. Dussault said 
Pestalozzi took a world of trouble to teach a child that 
his nose was in the middle of his face. If Alexander 
was the Great, says Landor, what was Aristotle who made 
him so, and taught him every art and science he knew, 
except three — those of drinking, blaspheming, and of 
murdering his bosom friends? A graduate of Harvard, 



126 LITERARY BREVITIES 

when asked his impression of the very liberal elective 
system permitted there, declared his mistake to have been 
in selecting subjects instead of men. Some of the most 
valuable pedagogical precepts have emanated from mor- 
ally defective characters who, like Rousseau, would in 
any civilized age be regarded as personally unfit to teach 
youth. It is sometimes belittling to a man of high lit- 
erary, intellectual, and moral character to be president 
of an American college, where, with the student body, 
neither goodness nor greatness is sacred. According to 
William James, psychology is a science, and teaching is 
an art; and he says sciences never generate arts directly 
out of themselves; that the science of logic never made 
a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made 
a man behave rightly. Dr. Johnson says a historical 
fraud lies against any biographer who does not name the 
school or the masters of men illustrious for literature. 
Senator Hoar, in explaining the fact that in earlier times 
a prominent New England lawyer or clergyman was 
often as famous at thirty as ever afterwards, declares 
it to have been in large part due to the personality of the 
college instructor. Miinsterberg insists, that all instruc- 
tion which is good must be interesting. The same says 
of his education, "I had from my ninth year no teacher 
who had not completed three years' work in a graduate 
school." Dr. Johnson once taught a private school 
and had David Garrick for a pupil. Some one has said, 
that there are virtues which only misfortune can teach 
us. Luther counts it one of the highest virtues upon 
earth, to educate faithfully the children of others, which 
so few, and scarcely any, do by their own. Emerson 
kept a school for a time at Cambridge; one of his pupils 
was John Holmes, a brother of Oliver Wendell. John 
Holmes thought Emerson seemed like a captive phi- 



EDUCATION 127 

losopher set to tending sheep. Your born teacher, says 
Bliss Perry, is as rare as a poet, and as likely to die young. 
Voltaire says of a certain teacher, "What pains he takes 
to tell us what everybody knows." Washington's first 
schoolmaster was a bondman. Montaigne, who con- 
sidered Seneca and Plutarch as his two chief teachers, 
thought discipleship to be the most efficient kind of 
praise. It was greatly to the discredit of Socrates that 
he had been the teacher of Alcibiades and Critias. It 
was said of Dr. Young, author of " Night Thoughts," that 
he used to explain a thing till all men doubted it. Seneca 
was the teacher of Nero, as Socrates had been of Alci- 
biades. The faults of teachers, declares George Wash- 
ington Moon, if suffered to pass unreproved, soon become 
the teachers of faults. Old teachers, George Sand says, 
do not like to see their pupils appear to understand faster 
than they do themselves. The most successful teachers 
are those who make friends and companions of their pupils. 
Jeremy Taylor and Carlyle both detested teaching; the 
latter said it was better to die than keep a school. No- 
body can be taught faster than he can learn, declares 
Dr. Johnson. Dr. Buckland, lecturer at Oxford, on the 
birth of his son Frank planted a birch, for he was deter- 
mined that his son should be well brought up. Amiel 
thinks we must learn to read the childish soul as we might 
a piece of music. To know how to suggest is the great 
art of teaching. According to Herbert Spencer's phi- 
losophy, no intellectual power can become too great, 
but every moral faculty needs to have its boundaries 
fixed. How many men are lost for want of being touched 
to the quick, observes Seneca. Balzac declares, that 
natural intelligence never takes the place of what men 
learn from their mothers. The polisher, says Browning, 
needs precious stone no less than precious stone needs 



128 LITERARY BREVITIES 

polisher. Balzac thinks the most dangerous of all instruc- 
tion is bad example. There were men at Rome who 
taught people how to chew. Whenever a young man 
became Jorden's pupil he became his son, says Dr. John- 
son. Lycurgus resolved the whole business of legisla- 
tion into the bringing up of children. It is Herbert 
Spencer's idea, that the end of education is to elevate 
above the age. Pestalozzi calls mothers the ideal edu- 
cators. Mlinsterberg believes that the really good 
teacher needs many gifts and qualities which may be ab- 
sent in great scholars. By continuing to teach music, 
says Rousseau, I insensibly gained some knowledge of 
it. Dr. Harris calls Isaac Newton a perpetual school- 
master to the race. Boswell tells us that Dr. Johnson 
had the happy art of instructing himself by making 
every man he met tell him something of what he knew 
best. The man who has no children of his own can al- 
ways tell just how to bring up children. The faculty 
of Harvard made Brook Farm a favorite place for rusti- 
cated students. It is easier, says the Spanish proverb, 
to keep the devil out than to turn him out. It is within 
the experience of most teachers to have a former pupil 
ask for a recommendation of good character, to aid him 
in obtaining a business situation; some of these letters, 
relating to students with shady school records, are signif- 
icant for what they do not say. It is not enough for the 
teacher to know the right precepts and philosophy of his 
profession; he must live with and practise them long 
before they can become through him an efficient power. 
It was a wise injunction of Richter, never to tell your 
children that other children are ill brought up. A good 
rider makes a good horse, says Eugene Sue. The direc- 
tion of the mind, thinks Joubert, is more important than 
its progress. The same author says, to teach is to learn 



EDUCATION 129 

twice over. It is the doctrine of Herbert Spencer, that 
intellectual progress is from the concrete to the abstract. 
Richter calls repetition the mother of education. Edu- 
cators are generally one-sided in their professional views, 
illustrating the truth of Goethe's remark, that few persons 
know how to comprehend a whole. Carlyle tells of one 
Adam Hope, an old teacher of his time in Annan, who after 
allowing a boy to indulge in a sham of knowledge, "re- 
duced him to zero and made him fast," to think his way 
rationally out of his error. Landor declares that Aris- 
totle makes you learn more than he teaches. Tennyson 
read Job in the Hebrew; he was fond of Beethoven. 
When Charles Sumner first visited Washington, he called 
upon Chancellor Kent, finding his conversation lively 
and instructive, but grossly ungrammatical. Emerson, 
like Hawthorne, was not distinguished for scholarship 
while in college. Emerson made his acquaintance with 
foreign authors chiefly through translations; he so read 
two of his favorites, Plato and Montaigne, but, according 
to Dr. Holmes, he read all of Goethe in the original, 
though with some difficulty. "When I was at Eton," 
says Gladstone, "we knew very little indeed, but we 
knew it accurately." Lockhart informs us, that Burns 
seemed to have the poets by heart. At one period of his 
life Burns carried a pocket Milton with him constantly. 
Ben Jonson said Shakspeare had little French and no 
Latin. Plutarch, a Greek of the first century a.d., learned 
Latin late in life. Madame Roland believes, that there 
are minds that have no need of cultivation. Prescott, 
the historian, was no mathematician; he used to memo- 
rize all his mathematical demonstrations without any 
understanding of the reasoning. Madame Geoffrin's 
education was limited to learning to read, paying no atten- 
tion to spelling; she read a great deal. Benson speaks 



130 LITERARY BREVITIES 

of a man full to the brim of uninteresting information. 
The same says a man may become a mere book-eater, 
as he may become an opium-eater. Why should a teacher 
feel obliged to publish something in order to gain profes- 
sional prestige? It has been observed by some one, that 
if he had read as many books as other men, he would be 
as ignorant as they. Shakspeare's mother could not 
write her own name. The Duke of Wellington remarked 
of a certain peer, that it was a pity his education had 
been so far too much for his abilities. John Hay informs 
us, that Spanish girls have scarcely any education what- 
ever; that they throw themselves, in orthography, entirely 
upon our benevolence. Balzac had a fine library and 
was a great reader. Mrs. Browning studied Greek and 
German with her brother. Haydon laughs at Sir Thomas 
Lawrence's lack of scholarship, alluding in particular to 
his calling Olympias, the mother of Alexander, Olympia. 
Crothers is of the opinion, that pedantry is a well-recog- 
nized compound, two-thirds sound learning and one-third 
harmless vanity. In the introduction to " Evelina," the 
editor declares that Mme. D'Arblay's English was never 
very secure, because it was not based on Latin. Bacon 
is said to have known very little Aristotle. Dr. Johnson 
calls classical quotation the parole of literary men the 
world over. We all at length come to have our own pref- 
erence as to the spelling of such proper names as Virgil 
and Shakspeare. Petrarch and Boccaccio both studied 
Greek under Leonzio Pilato. When everybody was igno- 
rant, half-knowledge served very well, some one has 
observed. Stanley Hall tells of two pedagogues of the 
13th century who fought a duel for the right spelling of a 
word. It is worthy of remark, that none of Shakspeare's 
women are learned. Huxley learned Greek late in middle 
life, that he might see for himself just what Aristotle said 



EDUCATION 131 

about the chambers of the heart, and also that he might 
read the New Testament in the original. Frederick the 
Great never learned to punctuate what he wrote, and 
spelled wretchedly. Of the severe scholarship of the 
humanist Valla, some one wittily remarked, that since 
he went among the shades, Pluto himself has not dared 
to speak in the ancient languages. A propos of accurate 
scholarship, Joubert observes, that we only become 
correct by correcting. Plato knew no language but 
Greek. Hazlitt declares, that a dunce may talk on the 
Kantian philosophy with great impunity, but if he opened 
his mouth on any other subject he might be found out. 
It was characteristic of Macaulay, that he showed a min- 
ute knowledge of subjects not introduced by himself. 
We are told that Shakspeare's second daughter was 
too illiterate to write her name. Macaulay said he did 
not feel the lack of the honor of being a senior wrangler, 
but did regret his want of a senior wrangler's knowledge 
of mathematics. The great literary lights have rarely 
been masters of more than one language. It is recorded 
of Sir Isaac Newton, that, though so deep in algebra and 
fluxions, he could not readily make up a common account. 
Professor Peck says it is only a servant-maid who makes 
a poor pen an excuse for her bad spelling. A good way 
to test a man's culture is to get him to read aloud. John 
Bunyan, the Prince of Orange, and Napoleon Bonaparte 
were all notoriously bad spellers. Leigh Hunt, it was 
said, never mastered the multiplication table. Dr. John- 
son said Goldsmith's utmost knowledge of zoology was 
to tell a horse from a cow. To obtain prominence as a 
scholar, one must be a specialist. The elder Pitt, his 
sister often said, knew nothing accurately except Spen- 
ser's " Faerie Queene." Dante knew no Greek. When the 
versatile Lord Brougham was made Lord Chancellor, 



132 LITERARY BREVITIES 

O'Connell said of him, "If he knew a little law, he would 
know a little of everything." Shakspeare tells of some 
one who could not take two from twenty for his heart 
and leave eighteen. General Herkimer, who spoke Eng- 
lish badly, could not spell his own name twice alike, we 
are told. Solid learning, Bacon asserts, prevents vain 
admiration, which is the root of all weakness. Robert 
Burton is declared by Felix Adler to be the best read man 
who has ever lived. Locke's theory of becoming learned 
was to pursue a single subject for a considerable length 
of time. Joan of Arc was unable to write. Huxley, though 
not a university man, had a mastery of Greek, Latin, 
French, Italian, and German. Aristotle took all knowledge 
for his province. While Huxley was an omnivorous 
reader, Herbert Spencer read but little. Concern- 
ing the fact that Rubens spoke seven languages, some 
one has said, that to speak seven languages is to speak 
no one well. The man of imagination without learning, 
asserts Joubert, has wings and no feet. A wide scholar- 
ship, some one has observed, turns into knowledge of the 
places where knowledge is. Lichtenberg, a professor 
at Gottingen, declared that he never knew his own lan- 
guage until he had learned another. Walter Scott spoke 
no foreign language, but read Spanish and Italian. Bea- 
consfield said there was no subject which Lord Brougham 
knew thoroughly. Macaulay defined a scholar as one 
who reads Plato with his feet on the fender. Macaulay 
asserts, that in Europe during the twelfth, thirteenth, 
and fourteenth centuries, not one man in five hundred 
could have spelled his way through a psalm. Tennyson 
studied "Don Quixote" in the original. In bad orthogra- 
phy, Andrew Jackson quite outdid the Prince of Orange and 
Napoleon; on a single page of a letter he was known to 
spell "which" in three different ways. If thou seest aught 



EDUCATION 133 

amiss in another, mend it in thyself, says some writer. 
Your power over others will be in great measure propor- 
tionate to your power over yourself. Herbert Spencer 
thinks inconsistency one of the worst errors in education. 
According to William Beckford, disagreeable things are 
the most salutary. Seneca declares, that nature does 
not give virtue; and that it is a kind of art to become 
good. According to Plutarch, it was a saying of Brutus, 
that the person has had but an ill training who has not 
been taught to deny himself anything. A bad pupil 
often might be managed more successfully if he came in 
contact with only one teacher. It has been asserted by 
some one, that he is not well bred, who cannot bear ill 
breeding in another. The child's ear readily distinguishes 
a decided from an angry tone of voice, is the observation 
of Richter. The same also observes, that it is not the 
badness of examples, but their long continuance, that 
injures children. Bad home influences often render the 
moral improvement of pupils difficult. In rare cases, 
bad examples have a good effect. Seneca made the great 
mistake of governing Nero always on the ruinous prin- 
ciple of concession. Locke treated education under four 
heads, — virtue, wisdom, manners, and learning, and 
considered the last mentioned least important of them 
all. Montaigne would keep woman ignorant, on the pre- 
text that instruction would mar her natural charms. It 
is Seneca's idea, that it is good for every man to fortify 
himself on his weak side. The test of every religious, polit- 
ical, or educational system, is the man which it forms, 
says Amiel. The most gifted minds, when they are ill 
educated, become preeminently bad, according to Plato. 
Self-conquest, says Goethe, is true victory. Happy are 
they that hear their detractions and can put them to mend- 
ing, is a wise saying of Shakspeare. Homer explains 



134 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Dolon's badness by the fact that he was a brother brought 
up among sisters only; Oliver Cromwell was a sole brother 
having seven sisters. Shakspeare thinks best men are 
moulded out of faults. Such was Grieg's dislike for 
school, that he would stand in the rain till he was soaked 
to the skin, so that the teacher would be obliged to send 
him home. Which is better, to present examples of ex- 
cellence to be revered, or of depravity to be avoided? 
Balzac wisely remarks, that it takes time for the undevel- 
oped man to discover that his own interests demand 
a measure of regard for the interest of his fellows; that 
the education of humanity is laborious and only to be 
achieved by infinite patience. Fathers are generally 
said to be wont to put their better minds into counsels 
to their sons. Bayard Taylor, when a lad, was surfeited 
with the Quaker idea of the wrongfulness of all kinds of 
oaths; the result, as often happens in such cases, was to 
give him an irrepressible desire to swear; to give vent 
to this desire, he once went to a retired spot and used 
freely all the "wicked words" he could command. The 
greatness of Frederick the Great, declares Sainte-Beuve, 
was shown in learning through trials. If a stick is held 
in front of a flock of sheep and the bell-wether leaps over 
it, all the rest vault in like manner even after the stick 
has been removed. It was the notion of Democritus, 
that more men become good by rule and discipline than by 
nature. Lowell thinks it good to be obliged to do what 
we don't like. 

EGOTISM 

THACKERAY liked to hear people talk about them- 
selves. The self -acknowledged brilliancy of some 
writers is matched in the man mentioned by Horace, who 
boasted that he could compose two hundred verses while 



ELOQUENCE 135 

standing on one leg. Lord Selbourne wished he was as 
sure of anything as Tom Macaulay was of everything. 
Goethe observes of a certain man, that he was "at one 
with himself" on a certain subject. Beaconsfield regards 
the author who speaks of his own books almost as bad as 
the mother who talks about her own children. Mrs. 
Craigie warns one not to shoot tame canaries and think 
himself a sportsman. Some one writes, — 

"I go first; my name's Jowett; 
I am the master of Balliol college; 
Whatever' s worth knowing, be sure that I know it; 
Whatever I don't know is not knowledge." 

A certain writer of a bad dictionary put on the title page, 
"First edition." 

ELOQUENCE 

WE are told that Fox foresaw the weaker parts of 
the argument that would be opposed to him, 
and that he always learned his replies. Burke was called 
the "dinner bell," from his tendency, when speaking, 
to scatter his audiences in the House of Commons. A 
reporter said of a certain Irish member of Parliament, 
noted for his long dull speeches, that he could not say 
what o'clock it was under two columns. Lord Chatham 
was accustomed to read in Bailey's Dictionary when pre- 
paring to speak in Parliament. Lord Bute, for effect, 
spoke slowly and made long pauses between sentences; 
at which Charles Townshend on one occasion cried out, 
"Minute guns." Speaking of Channing, Theodore Par- 
ker declared diffuseness to be the old Adam of the pulpit; 
that there are two ways of hitting a mark, — one with 
a single bullet, the other with a shower of small shot; 
that Channing chose the latter, as most pulpit orators 
do. According to Macaulay, nothing strikes an audience 



136 LITERARY BREVITIES 

so much as the animation of an orator who is gen- 
erally cold. Pericles made no gestures; Wendell Phil- 
lips but rarely. When Sir George Murray complained 
that he should never be able to get on with speaking in 
the House of Commons, Wellington gave him this piece 
of advice: "Say what you have to say, don't quote Latin, 
and sit down." Aristotle's three sources of persuasion 
are: Personal character of speaker, right mood of hearers, 
and argument. Seneca says of a certain orator, "Every- 
one, while he was speaking, feared lest he should stop." 
According to Emerson, all the great speakers were bad 
speakers at first. Longfellow's Boston friends used to 
say he was the only American citizen born since the 
Declaration of Independence who positively could not 
make a speech on any subject. Blaine affirms, that 
Webster's speech in reply to Hayne in 1830 was an amend- 
ment to the constitution; that it corrected traditions, 
changed convictions, and revolutionized conclusions. The 
inability of the Spartan envoys to speak in a public as- 
sembly put them to a great disadvantage when treating 
with the Athenians. It is reported of Isaac Barrow, 
Newton's predecessor in the chair of mathematics at 
Cambridge, that he could preach, with grave and copious 
eloquence, for three hours at a time. John Bright once 
said of Charles Wood's speech, that it contained some 
good things, that it would be impossible for any man to 
speak for three hours without saying some good things. 
The English cry of "Hear, hear," in a public assembly, 
originally meant disapproval of the speaker's sentiments. 
It is said of Cassius Severus that he spoke best ex tempore ; 
that he stood more obliged to fortune than to his own 
diligence; that it was an advantage to him to be inter- 
rupted in speaking; and that his adversaries were afraid 
to nettle him, lest his anger should redouble his eloquence. 



ELOQUENCE 137 

Jonathan Edwards imitated Pericles in using gestures 
sparingly. O'Connell observes, that a good speech is a 
good thing, but that the verdict is the thing. Demos- 
thenes was wont to walk alone, collecting his arguments, 
arranging his sentences, and uttering them aloud. Pope 
never could speak in public; he was even incapable of 
giving an account of any story to twelve friends together. 
Jefferson was a wretchedly poor speaker. Henry van 
Dyke thinks great orators are seldom great talkers. Gar- 
rick could draw tears from his auditors by merely repeat- 
ing the alphabet. Of some one Le Sage remarks, "His 
words flow like a gutter after a hailstorm." Macaulay 
thinks a little hesitation at the beginning of a speech 
is graceful. With inimitable force and diction, Shak- 
speare says, "She speaks poniards, and every word stabs." 
Hampden always spoke late in the debate. Isocrates, 
whom Cicero calls "the father of eloquence," was himself 
a poor speaker, but taught eloquence and made speeches 
for delivery by others. "Did I deliver the speech well?" 
said George III, after opening the session of Parliament. 
"Very well, sir," said Lord Eldon. "I am glad of it," 
replied the king, "for there was nothing in it." Demos- 
thenes did not speak ex tempore, but prepared his speeches 
with great care. It is Milton who speaks of "that old 
man eloquent," a sobriquet that has been applied to 
John Quincy Adams. Addison once rose in debate in 
the House of Commons, but owing to bashfulness broke 
down; he was ever afterwards silent in that body. The 
poet Whittier never spoke in public. Truth and accu- 
rate definition are, according to Socrates, the two first 
requirements in good speaking. According to Emer- 
son's definition, eloquence is the power to translate a 
truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to 
whom you speak. Lysias wrote a defense for a man who 



138 LITERARY BREVITIES 

got tired of it upon several re-readings. Weir Mitchell 
is authority for the statement, that Bishop Brooks habit- 
ually spoke, when preaching, two hundred ten words to 
the minute. I have often observed, says Macaulay, 
that a fine Greek compound is an excellent substitute for 
a reason. Sheridan once said of a certain speech, "It 
contains a good deal of what is new and what is true; 
but unfortunately what is new is not true, and what is 
true is not new." Philip remarked of one of the eloquent 
orations of Demosthenes, " Had I been there he would have 
persuaded me to take up arms against myself." Racine 
represents a tiresome advocate as beginning, "Before the 
creation of the world," when he is interrupted by the 
judge with, — "Advocate, let us pass on to the deluge." 
Cicero confessed that he always entered upon an oration 
with trembling and concern, and thought every good 
speaker did so. Hear Milton in this, "Thy words with 
grace divine infused, bring to their sweetness no satiety." 
The old deacon, who was deaf, told the young preacher 
to "speak the text up loud"; although he should not be 
able to follow the discourse, yet if he knew a young man's 
text he knew what he was going to say. Macaulay 
asserts, that nearly every eminent debater makes himself 
master of his art at the expense of his audiences. Charles 
Fox, when in Parliament, spoke every night but one, and 
regretted that he had not spoken that night. Shak- 
speare must have had the bombastic elocutionist in mind 
when he wrote, — "The empty vessel makes the great- 
est sound." Caius Gracchus had his Licinius carry a 
pitch-pipe, to warn him when he was getting too vocif- 
erous. The truest eloquence, observes Bulwer, is that 
which holds us too mute for applause. The tone of voice 
will affect the wisest and change the whole force of a 
speech or a poem, says Pascal. The Socratic sermon 



ELOQUENCE 139 

was addressed to the individual man. Landor thinks 
Parliamentary speakers of most eminence are superfi- 
cial in scholarship; he denominates as eloquence that 
which moves the reason by working on the passions. 
St. Chrysostom's audiences used to cheer him when he 
preached. Senator Hoar refers to the statement of some 
one, that the fact that a speech reads well is proof that it 
is not a good speech. It has been estimated, that the voice 
of George Whitefield, the great evangelist, could be heard 
distinctly by an audience of thirty thousand people. De- 
mosthenes, who was in danger of being defrauded of his 
inheritance, was obliged, in accordance with the Athe- 
nian law, to plead his own cause before the court; he was 
thus induced to study and practice rhetoric. Tenny- 
son read "Guinevere" aloud to George Eliot, causing her 
to weep. In the time of James II, an hour-glass was the 
proper thing on a pulpit; Burnet would hold it up after 
it had once run out, and his audience would clamor for him 
to talk it out once more. iEschines employed no action 
in speaking. Multitudes of bees are said to have settled 
on the lips of Pindar when an infant. Emerson's father 
was said to lack the fervor that could rouse the masses 
and the original resources that could command the few. 
From Shakspeare again, — "He speaks plain cannon, 
fire, and smoke." Gladstone insists, that a man who 
speaks in public ought to know, besides his own meaning, 
the meaning which others will attach to what he says. 
Frederic Harrison tells us, that Chatham's eloquence 
boiled over with interrogations; and that from the days 
of Quousque tandem, Catilina, impassioned oratory has 
ever rested more in questions than in bold asseveration. 
The Earl of Rosebery thinks, that if his speeches are 
judged by their effect, the younger Pitt may be held the 
greatest orator England has ever produced. Ben Jon- 



140 LITERARY BREVITIES 

son thought Bacon, as being both a good speaker and a 
good writer, the perfect orator. It has been declared, 
that Chatham always spoke without preparation. Gib- 
bon never spoke once while in Parliament. Swift ob- 
serves, that there is something native to each orator, 
which is so inherent to his thoughts and sentiments, that 
it is hardly possible for another to give a true idea of it. 
Rosebery asserts, that few speeches which have pro- 
duced an electrical effect on an audience can bear the 
uncolored photograph of a printed record. True elo- 
quence, according to Thomas Gray, consists in "thoughts 
that breathe and words that burn." As much as fifty 
guineas was paid for a single ticket to gain admission to 
Westminster Hall to hear Sheridan speak in the Warren 
Hastings case. Some go so far in praising Lincoln's Get- 
tysburg speech, as to say it rivals the funeral oration of 
Pericles. Bayard Taylor greatly disliked lecturing, not- 
withstanding his success in obtaining pecuniary compen- 
sation and popularity by it. Crothers thinks preaching 
without notes is not particularly difficult if one has some- 
thing to say. Sheridan's first speech in Parliament 
was not creditable; when his friends told him so, he 

answered, "It is in me, and, by , it shall come out." 

In the judgment of Mrs. Oliphant, it was Burke who orig- 
inated the idea of impeaching Warren Hastings; it was 
Pitt, by his unexpected vote with the accusing party, 
who made it practicable; but Sheridan was the hero of 
the occasion. We auditors grow restless, some one has 
remarked, when a speaker begins to cite classical names. 
In general it may be regarded as true, that a sermon 
which costs the preacher nothing is worth exactly what 
it costs. In the estimation of Don Piatt, Lincoln left 
at Gettysburg a record of eloquence never before reached 
by human lips. Some one declares, that Robespierre 



ELOQUENCE 141 

always wrote out his lengthy speeches, and "read out his 
reams of manuscript through spectacles." Once when 
Massillon descended from the pulpit, one of his hearers 
told him he had been eloquent; Massillon replied, "The 
devil told me so before you." Louis XIV once said to 
Massillon: "Father, I have heard several great orators, 
and I have been very much pleased with them; as for 
you, every time that I have heard you I have been much 
displeased with myself." George J. Abbott, a favorite 
clerk in the Department of State of which Webster was 
Secretary, and a fine classical scholar, was accustomed 
to hunt up classical allusions for Webster's use. John 
Wesley preached a thousand times a year. Demos- 
thenes, the first of orators, had in the beginning the great- 
est natural disqualification for oratory. In preaching, 
some regard the sermon as the thing of least importance. 
Mrs. Wiggin tells of a minister who "always has plenty 
to say after you think he's all through." Voltaire de- 
clares grace in expression to be worth more than what is 
said. Douglas ranked William Pitt Fessenden as the 
ablest and readiest debater he had ever known. Try to 
imagine a Roman making an after-dinner speech. Hare 
thinks it an essential characteristic of genius to be uncon- 
scious of its own eloquence. The so-called magnetism 
that accompanies the spoken word, observes H. W. 
Dresser, is often more effective than a strong argument. 
Wendell Phillips characterized Rufus Choate as the man 
who made it safe to murder. No stenographer could 
report the speeches of Sargent S. Prentiss; nor could he 
himself reproduce his own thoughts and sentences. It 
is the opinion of some one, that the one physiological 
standard by which man can be truly measured, and 
which applies to him alone, is his faculty of speech. 
Faraday, as a lecturer, had such clear powers of exposi- 



142 LITERARY BREVITIES 

tion that people thought they understood him even if 
they didn't. Savonarola said he was like the hail which 
pelts everyone who is out in the open air. George Eliot 
thinks the secret of oratory lies, not in saying new things, 
but in saying things with a certain power that moves the 
heart. Emerson thought Channing could never be 
reported, for his eye and his voice could not be printed. 
La Rochefoucauld lacked courage to speak before six 
or seven persons even. Opposition always drew Wen- 
dell Phillips out; when the meeting seemed too tame, 
some friend in the audience would purposely hiss to arouse 
him. Haydon remarks, that while Fuseli could not argue, 
he made good this defect by the use of brilliant repartees. 
Wendell Phillips was not gifted as a writer. Kyrle 
Bellew's father, a clergyman, had such a fascinating voice 
that he would repeat the Lord's Prayer so effectively 
as to cause his congregation to sob. Queen Victoria's 
voice was like a silver stream flowing over golden stones, 
says Ellen Terry. Massillon's opening words in his fu- 
neral oration on Louis XIV are r "God alone is great." 
Eulogies, E. P. Whipple observes, which might be con- 
sidered offensive when addressed to the living, may safely 
be ventured in noting the rare virtues of the dead. I 
don't quite see how an honest man can be a good and suc- 
cessful orator, observes Hawthorne. Truths divine come 
mended from his tongue, is a happy quotation from Beck- 
ford. Burke is a brilliant exception to the rule, that 
great orators are poor writers. Emerson's oration was 
said to begin nowhere and end everywhere. Coleridge 
failed in the attempt to be a Unitarian preacher; he had 
in his first congregation seventeen persons; several of 
these one by one slipped away; one woman remained to 
the end, but she was asleep. It was remarked by Sam- 
uel Rogers, that a certain Dr. Price was great indeed in 



ENEMIES 143 

the pulpit, — making one forget the preacher and think 
only of the subject. The eloquence of Livy, it has been 
noted, was chiefly employed in painting virtue, the elo- 
quence of Tacitus in branding vice. Macaulay thinks a 
tribunal will decide a judicial question most fairly when 
it has heard two able men argue as unfairly as possible 
on the two opposite sides. Jonathan Edwards was 
known to weep while listening to the preaching of White- 
field. President Tappan's advice to young orators was, 
"Don't stop; keep saying something." Isocrates, cele- 
brated for his beautiful oratorical compositions, never 
ventured to speak in public. Cicero, egotistical and boast- 
ful in most respects, never boasted of his eloquence. 
John Fiske is of the opinion, that for genuine oratorical 
power, Webster's reply to Hayne is probably the great- 
est speech that has been delivered since the oration of 
Demosthenes on the Crown. During his first session of 
Parliament the elder Pitt never opened his mouth. 

ENEMIES 

BE patient with your enemy; time may repair the 
breach. Plutarch says a man should not allow him- 
self to hate even his enemies, for the reason that, if he 
indulge this passion on some occasions, it will rise of it- 
self on others. Give no odds to your foe, is Spenser's 
order. The strongest of all antipathies, according to 
Madame De Stael, is the antipathy of a second-rate mind 
to a first-rate one. He called me all the names in the 
rainbow, is the way some one complains. Emerson 
regards calamities as our friends; rough water, he de- 
clares, can teach lessons worth knowing. Don't be so 
tender at making an enemy now and then, is Emerson's 
advice. It is a wise saying of Buddha, that he who in- 



144 LITERARY BREVITIES 

dulges in enmity is like one who throws ashes to windward. 
Balzac tells us not to be afraid of making enemies. Hay- 
don thinks there are moments when one forgives his bitter- 
est enemies. It is never wise to disregard what your 
enemies say about you. We are told that one enemy can 
do more hurt than ten friends can do good. The Spec- 
tator has something to the effect, that a generous enemy 
will sometimes bestow commendations, as the dearest 
friend sometimes cannot refrain from speaking ill. Bal- 
zac thinks it so natural to destroy that which we cannot 
possess. Horace says everybody envies his neighbor's 
pursuits until he tries them. It is Victor Hugo's injunc- 
tion, that we learn to disdain, as it protects and crushes; 
that we do not give our enemies the satisfaction of think- 
ing that they cause us grief or pain. Landor thinks 
no man so ignorant as not to know, that he who has 
lost all his enemies will soon lose all his energy. Dr. 
Johnson advises him who would know himself to consult 
his enemies. Some one has said, — 

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, 
And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere." 

ENERGY 

THE difference between one man and another, says 
Dr. Arnold, is not mere ability — it is energy. 
Theocritus thought trying would do anything in the world. 
Frederick the Great wrote Voltaire, that he was busy with 
both hands. 

ENNUI 

BALZAC compares a certain one to a retired trades- 
man at a loss how to kill time. As tiresome as a 
rainy day, is Balzac's simile. Zoroaster longed "to tear 



ENVY 145 

down this tiresome old sky." George Sand asserts, that 
ennui is sure to follow the inactivity of our instincts. 
Lowell thinks whittling a stick a medicine against ennui. 
Cowper tries to imagine how the antediluvians who 
lived to the age of eight hundred could have spent their 
time, with so little variety in the way of employments. 

ENTHUSIASM 

EDWARD EVERETT laughs at the American who 
looks at Westminster Abbey and Stratford-on- 
Avon with an enthusiasm which the Englishman thinks 
a sort of provincial rawness. According to Schiller, 
enthusiasm never calculates its sacrifices. It is an obser- 
vation of Sainte-Beuve, that the disappointments of 
enthusiasm bring disgust. Enthusiasm distorts, as Belloc 
thinks. Goethe observes that enthusiasm is not a herring 
that can be pickled and kept for a few years. Balzac 
calls enthusiasm "that virtue within a virtue." Thoreau 
calls enthusiasm a supernatural serenity. No virtue 
is safe that is not enthusiastic, says Sir J. R. Seeley. 
Success implies enthusiasm about something. 

ENVY 

SENECA thinks it hard to avoid envy without in- 
curring contempt. He also says it is a common 
thing for men to hate the authors of their preferment, as 
the witnesses of their mean origin. A Boston lady, upon 
saying that J her ancestors came over in the Mayflower, 
was slurringly informed by the New York lady, that she 
didn't know before that the Mayflower had any steerage 
passengers. Steele says it is a matter of consolation to 
an envious person, when a man of known honor does a 



146 LITERARY BREVITIES 

thing unworthy of himself. Lord Chesterfield slurs 
Dante; so Coleridge does Gibbon. Ovid describes an 
evil spirit as looking down on the stately temples and 
wealthy haven of Athens, and scarce able to refrain from 
weeping because she could find nothing at which to weep. 
When Sir Joshua Reynolds proposed the health of Gains- 
borough as the best landscape painter, Wilson, in a spirit 
of jealousy, added, "And the best portrait painter too." 
Sir Robert Walpole, we are informed, shunned men of 
talents as latent rivals. According to the Indian prpverb, 
contempt pierces through the shell of the tortoise. The 
fox who had lost his tail tried to persuade the other foxes 
to have theirs cut off. Invidia festos dies non agit, is 
from some anonymous Latin author. A staff to beat 
that dog he long had sought, is Tasso's. Lord Bacon 
nowhere mentions Shakspeare. Adam Smith remarks, 
that the man who, by some revolution of fortune, is lifted 
up all at once into a condition of life greatly ajjove what 
he had formerly lived in, may be assured that the congratu- 
lations of his best friends are not all of them perfectly 
sincere. I envy no man's nightingale or spring, says 
George Herbert. Addison and Sir Joshua Reynolds are 
both said to have had the faculty of causing others to 
sneer without sneering themselves. Jealous ears, we are 
assured, always hear double. Dr. Johnson says envy is 
deservedly its own punishment. Heine, with rare frank- 
ness, confessed that he was envious of Goethe. A maxim 
of John Adams was, "Tell not of your prosperity, because 
it will make two men sad to one glad; nor of your ad- 
versity, for it will make two men glad to one sad." Pindar 
thinks it a nobler fate to be envied than to be pitied. 
Alison, speaking of the happy relation that existed be- 
tween Marlborough and Prince Eugene, says: "The 
really great alone can witness success without envy, or 



ENVY 147 

achieve it without selfishness." Louis XVI of France 
aided us in the Revolution, not out of love of republican 
institutions, but of hatred towards England. Townshend, 
in reporting the battle on the Plains of Abraham, made no 
mention of Wolfe. It is much to the discredit of Shak- 
speare, that of the English poets contemporary with him 
he barely mentions Marlowe and Ben Jonson. Words- 
worth, who contests with Milton the place next after 
Shakspeare among English poets, was selfishly chary of 
the recognition he gave other authors; he nowhere speaks 
in unqualified praise of any author of his time. Scott, 
on the other hand, praised freely, and was the personal 
friend of nearly all his literary brethren. Dr. Johnson 
says scarcely any man ever wrote so much and praised 
so few as Milton. iEschylus hits the mark in declaring 
that "few have the fortitude of soul to honor a friend's 
success without a touch of envy." Heine affirms, that 
Goethe feared every writer of independence and origi- 
nality, but glorified and praised all the petty authorlings; 
that he carried this practise so far, that to be praised by 
Goethe came at last to be considered a brevet of mediocrity. 
Shakspeare makes one of his characters, in speaking of 
Cicero, say, — 

"For he will never follow any thing 
That other men begin." 

Monarchs, for the enhancement of their own glory, wish 
their successors to turn out bad princes. It has been 
claimed by some one, that Cicero was not mentioned by 
Virgil or Horace. St. Augustine defines envy as the hatred 
of another's felicity. 



148 LITERARY BREVITIES 



EPIGRAMS 

BALZAC speaks of an epigram in the eyes. Her look 
was like a sad embrace, is Matthew Arnold's. 
Haste is of the devil, was a saying of Mahomet. Some one 
has said, "If it is impossible, it shall be done." He more 
had pleased us, had he pleased us less, is Addison's. 
Some one has characterized reform as organized distrust. 
Experience is the oracle of truth, is from The Federalist. 
Good company upon the road is the shortest cut, is 
anonymous. Ruskin thought Carlyle had been born in 
the clouds and struck by lightning. The Chinese phi- 
losopher Laotsze estimated things as valuable through 
what is absent from them. Charles Lamb pronounced 
Coleridge an archangel — a little damaged. To have 
loved her was a liberal education, is Steele's. The feast 
of reason and the flow of soul, is Pope's; this also, "The 
wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind"; so is this, "'Tis 
the same rope at different ends we twist." Maria Theresa 
said she would as soon part with her petticoat as with 
Silesia. According to an old proverb, it is not wise to use 
razors to cut blocks. 

EVILS 

FATHER NEWMAN thinks flagrant evils cure them- 
selves by being flagrant. Pascal declares, that men 
never commit evil so fully and so gaily as when they do 
so for conscience' sake. Shakspeare believes there is 
some soul of good in things evil. This from Shakspeare, — 

"How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds 
Makes deeds ill done." 

Walt Whitman says, "Nothing out of its place is good; 
nothing in its place is bad." - 



EXPERIENCE 149 



EXCESS 

PASCAL observes, that our senses can perceive no 
extreme; that too much noise deafens us, excess of 
light blinds us, too great distance or nearness equally 
interferes with our vision, prolixity or brevity equally 
obscures our discourse, too much truth overwhelms us, 
too many concords are unpleasing in music. Says 
Shakspeare, — 

"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
Is wasteful, and ridiculous excess." 

It is Shakspeare also who warns against "too much of 
a good thing." Again the same asks, "What need the 
bridge much broader than the flood?" By George Sand 
we are told, that the best qualities pushed to extremes 
become defective or absurd. Swift speaks of curing a 
scratch on the finger by cutting off the arm. Balzac 
mentions one who had eaten like a traveling actor, and 
drunk like the sands of the desert. It is remarked by 
George Sand, that he who tries to prove too much proves 
nothing. It is not the thing, says Bulwer, but the excess 
of the thing, that hurts. Balzac characterizes one as a 
"triple expansion glutton." Landor thinks it better to 
be lukewarm than to boil over. 

EXPERIENCE 

LOWELL refers to the happy hopeful past, when one 
was capable of everything because one had not tried 
anything. Lessing has observed, that the wealth of ex- 
perience derived from books is called learning; that one's 
own experience is wisdom; and that the smallest capital 
of the latter is worth millions of the former. William 



150 LITERARY BREVITIES 

De Morgan would, in building, never let any man do 
any job he hadn't done before. According to H. W. 
Dresser, human experience would have no real value if 
we could do naught but obey. Col. J. P. Henderson 
thinks experience of little value without reflection. H. W. 
Dresser is of the opinion, that experiences of evil and 
suffering are, in a sense, to be entirely justified by the good 
which is brought out of them — although this does not 
make evil good. 

FACTS 

WE are told that Guizot's name is pronounced 
differently in different parts of France. Steel 
pens were first introduced at Washington by 
N. P. Willis. Mrs. Alexander Hamilton was the first to 
introduce ice-cream at Washington. Be most careful, 
observes Lowell, in stating facts; if an adversary can 
show one misstatement (however small) in your argument, 
he has already confuted you in the most effectual manner 
to nine-tenths of those you are striving to convince. In 
the sixteenth century, in Italy, the clocks struck up to 
twenty-four, from sunset to sunset. Sir John Hawkins, 
in the ship Jesus, engaged in the kidnapping of slaves. 
Montaigne, though living at the time, makes no men- 
tion of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Petrarch, in 
describing Laura's face, makes no mention of her nose. 
Italics were so called because they were invented in Italy, 
the invention being attributed to John Aldus. A copy of 
"Faust" was found in the possession of an American In- 
dian in North Carolina in the year 1829. The anagram 
of Gustavus is Augustus. Petrarch had an accurate pre- 
monition of the time of the death of two friends, Laura 
being one of them. It is claimed that the word "brain" 
does not occur in the Bible. Equality may be right, 



FAME 151 

Balzac asserts, but no power on earth can convert it into 
fact 

FAITH 

FAITH admits of no discussion, Balzac thinks. Trust 
not him who hath once broken faith, observes 
Shakspeare. Heraclitus declares, that much knowledge 
of things divine escapes through want of faith. Playing 
fast and loose with faith, is Shakspeare's. Balzac says 
bankers have no faith in anything less than a promissory 
note. 

FALSEHOOD 

HE lied like a courtier, is from Balzac. Attorneys 
meet with more clients who tell lies, says Balzac, 
than who tell the truth. The same author tells of shops 
having fine signs and nothing to sell. It is Hawthorne's 
remark, that to the untrue man the whole universe is 
false. Falsehood flies and Truth comes limping after, is 
anonymous. Scott said to the prince regent, "I am not 
the author of Waverley." The true art of falsehood, 
observes Madeline de Scudery, is to resemble truth. It 
is a maxim of Mme. D'Arblay, that falsehood is not more 
unjustifiable than unsafe. 

FAME 

SENECA remarks, that he who makes himself famous 
by his eloquence, justice, or arms, illustrates his 
extraction, let it be never so mean; and gives inestimable 
reputation to his parents. We should never have heard 
of Sophroniscus but for his son Socrates; nor of Aristo and 
Gryllus, if it had not been for Xenophon and Plato. 
When Jenny Lind first met Daniel Webster, she was 



152 LITERARY BREVITIES 

greatly impressed by his personality; after the interview 
she remarked, "I have seen a man." Dignum laude 
virum Musa vetat mori, is from Horace. How many small 
streams have been made great in the writings of famous 
poets! Scamander, Avon, and Ayr are in point. Shak- 
speare, Bacon, and Bentham had their merits first recog- 
nized in foreign countries. Lucky is the man, says 
Thackeray, whose servants speak well of him. Tanto 
maior famae sitis est, quam virtutis, is from Juvenal. 
Spenser's " Faerie Queene " tells in allegory the glories of 
Queen Elizabeth. Heine thinks Sinai, when Moses stands 
on it, appears insignificant. Andrew D. White pronounces 
De Witt Clinton and William H. Seward New York's 
two greatest governors. When Madame De Stael asked 
Napoleon who in his opinion was the greatest woman, he 
replied, "She who bears the most children." Dr. John- 
son asserts, that no authors ever had so much fame in 
their lifetime as Pope and Voltaire. Carlyle remarks of 
some unfortunate, that the blessing of full oblivion is 
denied him. At Magdeburg, Nelson was exhibited to an 
admiring crowd at so much a peep. Browning says, "No 
dream's worth waking." The sea of glory has no banks 
assigned, is from Tasso. Thoreau remarks, that the 
Xanthus or Scamander is not a mere dry channel and bed 
of a mountain torrent, but fed by the overflowing springs 
of fame. Sir Godfrey Kneller, on his death-bed, said he 
should not like to lie among the rascals at Westminster. 
It is impossible for man to do anything in a mechanical 
way which time may not obliterate. Southey believed 
that Nelson, who had been made viscount after the battle 
of Copenhagen, would have fought his way up to a duke- 
dom if he had lived long enough. It is the greatest un- 
happiness of an eminent man to receive sympathy and 
applause from disreputable sources. It was Pompey the 



FAME 153 

Great who said, "More men adore the rising than the 
setting sun." There is many a man whose sole recom- 
mendation consists in having an excellent wife. The fol- 
lowing is from Butler's "Hudibras," — 

"In western clime there is a town, 
To those who dwell therein well known." 

Alexander's horse had a city named after him. They 
glared through their absences, is Emerson's translation of 
a sentence in Tacitus which refers to the absence of the 
effigies of Brutus and Cassius at a certain state funeral. 
And fight i' the ranks, unnoticed by the world, is a line 
from Browning. Not to know me argues yourself un- 
known, is from Milton. Fame, that last infirmity of 
noble minds, is Milton's also. Landor professed never 
to have heard of Herschel, even by name. To the dead, 
says iEschylus, nothing remains save glory. Dr. John- 
son insists that in lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon 
oath. It was Chesterfield's idea, that no man deserves 
reputation who does not desire it. Pliny, the younger, 
leaves mankind this only alternative, — either of doing 
what deserves to be written, or of writing what deserves to 
be read. Landor believes that few rise to eminence in a 
calm. In Plutarch's opinion, man's applause is but a 
transient dream. George Eliot speaks of one not op- 
pressively illustrious. Chaucer was the first English poet 
to be buried in Westminster Abbey. To do acts that 
shall for all time beneficently affect the lives of others, is 
to achieve a glorious immortality. Hazlitt thinks no 
man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime; that 
the test of greatness is the page of history. Balzac says 
honors bring sycophants. One might as reasonably ex- 
pect to perpetuate his name by writing it on a bank of 
fog. Thackeray would rather make his name than inherit 



154 LITERARY BREVITIES 

it. Allan Cunningham thinks the applause of a man's 
native place is generally the last which he receives. 
Shakspeare's remains do not honor Westminster Abbey. 
In the Rambler we are told, that the author's crudest 
mortification is neglect. Praise undeserved some one calls 
satire in disguise. An institution, says Emerson, is the 
lengthened shadow of one man. Pope calls fame that 
second life in other's breath. Jeremy Taylor enjoins men 
to use no stratagems and devices to get praise. To be 
unreasonably admired by one generation, Justin McCarthy 
asserts, is to incur the certainty of being unreasonably 
disparaged by the next. That fellow, remarks Balzac, 
wears the Legion of Honor for having published works 
he can't understand. Two out of eight of the busts on 
the outside front of the Congressional library at Washing- 
ton are Emerson and Hawthorne. It has been remarked, 
that it is not what others say of you, but what you say 
yourself, that does you the greatest injury. Hannibal 
conquered, says Alison, has left a greater name among 
men than Scipio victorious. Addison thinks there is 
nothing gains a reputation for a preacher so much as his 
own practice. To be famous when you are young is the 
fortune of the gods, says Beaconsfield. John Fiske calls 
Edward I the greatest of English kings. La Place re- 
moved the name of Napoleon from the dedication of 
"Mecanique Celeste." Napoleon said his nobility dated 
from Monte Notte, the place where he won his first victory 
in 1796. Napoleon did not like to be called a Corsican. 
There was a consul Nero, the conqueror of Hasdrubal 
at the river Metaurus, whose achievement saved Rome 
by giving a death blow to Hannibal's scheme of conquest 
in Italy; yet when the name Nero is mentioned, the in- 
famous Emperor of that name is the one always thought 
of. Macaulay speaks of Fuller, of King William's time, 



FAME 155 

as sinking into an obscurity from which he twice or thrice, 
at long intervals, again emerged for a moment into in- 
famy. Chrysostom declares, that neither the tomb of 
Alexander nor the day of his death is known. Eratos- 
thenes, an obscure fellow, burned the temple of Diana to 
eternize his name, which has come down to us, though all 
were forbidden to speak or publish it. The artist-student 
Torregiano owes his only renown to the fact that in a fit 
of jealousy he threw his mallet at Michelangelo and 
broke his nose. Justin McCarthy thinks Blondin, who 
crossed Niagara more than three hundred times on his 
tight rope, probably the only man in history who never in 
his time had a rival in his own field of action. The land- 
lord of a New Hampshire inn, being asked by an itinerant 
preacher what sort of a man Franklin Pierce was, said: 
"Wall, up here, where everybody knows Frank Pierce 
and where Frank Pierce knows everybody, he's a pretty 
considerable fellow; but you come to spread him out over 
this whole country, and I'm afraid he'll be dreadful thin 
in spots." I have been, perhaps, says Scott, the most 
voluminous author of the day; it is a comfort to me to 
think that I have tried to unsettle no man's faith, to 
corrupt no man's principles, and that I have written 
nothing which on my deathbed I should wish blotted out. 
Shakspeare writes, — 

"The purest treasure mortal times afford 
Is spotless reputation." 

The graves of but few men of two thousand years ago can 
be identified today. In 1850, Bayard Taylor delivered 
the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard; in a letter he 
speaks of this poem as follows, — "My Harvard poem, 
poor as it is, was received with great applause; but alas! 
I published it, and thus killed the tradition of its excel- 



156 LITERARY BREVITIES 

lence." When the elder Cato was asked why he had no 
statue erected in his memory, he answered, "I had much 
rather men should ask why I had no statue, than why I 
had one." Some Athenians refused to aid in rearing a 
monument to Miltiades until he conquered alone. Addi- 
son thinks to be uncensured and to be obscure are the same 
thing. Never mind, says Bulwer, if one can read you 
but slowly — better chance of being less quickly forgotten. 
There may be conquest, Racine remarks, yet no glory 
won. George Meredith says the bare renown of a wine 
is inspiring. Carlyle thinks the time may come when 
Napoleon will be better known for his laws than for his 
battles. Owen Wister observes, that a great man cannot 
do great things without in a way growing apart from his 
fellows, little as he may desire such a result. Goethe and 
Napoleon, at the time the two greatest men in Europe, met 
at Weimar. Goethe thinks even the greatest man is con- 
nected with his century by some weakness. Henry 
Taylor asserts, that the world knows nothing of its great- 
est men. Celebrity is based on controversy, according 
to Balzac. The pirate told Alexander he was the mightier 
thief of the two. Why do we love Burns, and at the 
same time look coldly upon Byron, inasmuch as both are 
morally frail? Coleridge saw Wordsworth seated, 

"In the choir 
Of ever enduring men." 

Reputation, says James Howell, is like a fair structure, 
long time a-rearing, but quickly ruined. Fame is the sole 
payment of great souls, Richelieu thinks. Balzac finds 
no cheap route to greatness. Voltaire claims, that accusa- 
tions are always held to be just unless speedily confuted. 
At the festival of Feb. 26, 1881, in honor of Victor Hugo, 
seven hundred thousand people defiled before his house to 



FAME 157 

greet him. To Pythagoras is ascribed the invention of 
the multiplication table. It was of him it was said, Ipse 
dixit Farragut was sixty-one when he began the achieve- 
ments on which his fame rests. The Spectator informs 
us, that censure is the tax a man pays to the public for 
being eminent. Heine thinks the name of Pontius Pilate 
is as little likely to be forgotten as that of Christ. Some 
one observes, that the picture's value is the painter's 
name. Who can warrant the continuance of popularity? 
is asked by Scott. The following is from Lafcadio Hearn, 
"His name is lost, at least it is lost in Southern history; 
yet perhaps it may be recorded on the page of a great 
book, where leaves never turn yellow with time, and where 
letters are eternal as the stars." Perhaps only two other 
men, Erasmus and Voltaire, it has been remarked, were 
ever so popular as Petrarch. Cowper refers to one whose 
monument records everything but his vices. When 
once a woman has tested public applause, domestic life 
becomes lifeless and insipid in the comparison; actresses 
get the energy and spirit of men; so Hay don declares. 
It is only of the loftiest trees, says T. W. Higginson, of 
which it occurs to us to remark, that they do not touch the 
sky. Jacob Riis thinks a man everywhere is largely what 
his neighbors and his children think him to be. Sydney 
Smith had a brother whose chief distinction was, that as 
a boy he had been thrashed by a boy who afterwards 
became the Duke of Wellington. It has been remarked 
by some one, that the monument of the greatest man 
should be only a bust and a name; that if the name alone 
is insufficient to illustrate the bust, they should both 
perish. Hawthorne says each day you must prove your- 
self anew. Haydon thinks it one of the most difficult 
things in the world to manage the temper of your friends, 
when you first burst into public repute and leave them 



158 LITERARY BREVITIES 

behind. Certain poets are spoken of as those who live 
now only in books of poetical selections. The large gilt 
eagle at Aix was always turned in the direction where 
Frederick the Great happened to be. The shoe-buckle 
swallowed by young Frederick is preserved in Berlin. 
Professor W. It. Harper thinks the minor poets of France 
have been obscured by the immensity of a few supreme 
reputations; that the underwoods have been stunted by 
the great oaks. Carlyle complained, that, after preaching 
to deaf ears for forty years, a trifling address of his to 
Edinburgh students, which happened to be reported in 
the press, and in which he enumerated no idea which he 
had not reiterated ad nauseam for a lifetime, gave him 
more reputation than all his books. It is a fine thing, 
remarks Victor Hugo, to be a flea on a lion. It is a 
remark of Addison, that there is no defense against re- 
proach but obscurity. Cowley thinks the unknown are 
better than the ill known. In the opinion of Addison, 
death closes a man's reputation, and determines it as 
good or bad. Eripuit caelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis, 
is Turgot's. The most shining merit, declares Addison, 
goes down to posterity with disadvantage, when it is 
not placed by writers in its proper light. Swift allows 
Maevius to be as well known as Virgil. 

FATE 

FATE is unpenetrated causes, Emerson declares. It is 
Huxley's belief, that there is always a Cape Horn in 
one's life that one either weathers or wrecks oneself on. 
What has once passed the press, says Dr. Johnson, is 
irrevocable. The following is from James Shirley, — 

" There is no armor against fate; 
Death lays his icy hand on Kings." 



FEAR 159 



FAULTS 



SCIPIO told Signor Gabriel, that Gil Bias had but 
one fault — that of being faultless. Wilt thou whip 
thine own faults in other men? Shakspeare asks. Car- 
lyle says the greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. 
It is Balzac's belief, that those who please everyone please 
no one in particular, and the worst of all defects is to have 
none. A man may take no little credit to himself, ob- 
serves Lessing, for having committed only such errors as 
anybody might have avoided. Few persons bare their 
defects at once, Balzac thinks. This from Matthew 
Arnold, — "Our wants have all been felt, our errors 
made before." According to Addison, Lord Bacon's 
principal fault seems to have been the excess of that virtue 
which covers a multitude of faults. Everyone is apt to 
excuse a fault which he himself might have fallen into, is 
from Addison. And made almost a sin of abstinence, is 
Dryden's. 

FEAR 

THE man who fears nothing, says Schiller, is as 
powerful as he who is feared by everybody. 
Dionysius caused a sword to be hung by a horse-hair 
above the head of Damocles. Weir Mitchell thinks what 
different people dread is interesting. Louis XVI, when 
surrounded by a mob, asked, "Am I afraid? feel of my 
pulse." The thing in this world Montaigne was most 
afraid of was fear. When the orator Licinius was asked 
why he did not attack Crassus among the rest, he replied, 
"He wears wisps upon his horns." Julius Caesar thought 
it better to die once than to live always in fear of death. 
This same Caesar refused to take precautions against 
assassination, because life was not worth having at the 



160 LITERARY BREVITIES 

price of an ignoble solicitude for it. The tiger spares the 
fettered lion, says Heine. Weak-minded persons, Balzac 
says, are reassured as easily as they are frightened. 
Machiavelli thought it safer to be feared than to be loved. 
Addison thinks nothing makes such strong alliances as 
fear. The greatest cruelty, says Victor Hugo, is inspired by 
fear. James I of England is said to have trembled at the 
sight of a drawn sword. It is the opinion of Balzac, that 
the old are somewhat prone to foresee their own sorrows in 
the future of the young. Beaconsfield declares the worst 
evil one has to endure to be the anticipation of the calam- 
ities that do not happen. The fiercely satirical Pietro 
Aretino, of the sixteenth century, an Italian writer, was 
called "the scourge of princes." He was paid large sums 
of money by those who feared his satire. 

FICTION 

IT is the opinion of Arlo Bates, that the sure hold of 
fiction upon mankind depends upon the fact, that it 
enables the reader to gain experience vicariously. Ten- 
nyson thought the flight of Hetty in "Adam Bede" and 
Thackeray's gradual breaking down of Colonel New- 
come were the two most pathetic things in modern prose 
fiction. The Chinese romance ends with the hero's 
triumphantly marrying both heroines. Cooper's "Red 
Rover" was the first real sea tale, his "Pilot" being half 
land tale. The greatest merit of fiction, says Sir Arthur 
Helps, is that it creates and nourishes sympathy. 

FILIAL LOVE 

HAPPY for the most part, observes Cowper, are 
parents who have daughters; since daughters are 
not apt to outlive their natural affections, which a son 



FLATTERY 161 

has generally survived even before the boyish years are 
expired. Barrie's mother, whom he adored, cared nothing 
for natural scenery; this, it is alleged, is why he has so 
little natural scenery in his books. We are told of a 
certain woman whose favorite reading was the biog- 
raphies of men who had been good to their mothers. 
Epaminondas declared it the chief happiness of his life, 
that his father and mother lived to see his generalship and 
victory at Leuctra. Plutarch is authority for the state- 
ment, that Coriolanus pursued glory because the acquisi- 
tion of it delighted his mother. 

FLATTERY 

THERE is not one man in a million, says Seneca, 
that is proof against artificial flattery. Balzac 
thinks flattery never emanates from noble souls; it means 
self-interest. Cicero says of some one, Vereor laudare 
praesentem. Balzac says he has always noticed how vulgar 
forced flattery is. To flatter those we do not know, re- 
marks Goldsmith, is an easy task; but to flatter our inti- 
mate acquaintances, all whose foibles are strongly in our 
eye, is drudgery insupportable. Weir Mitchell thinks 
the value of flattery lies in the flatterer. A man once 
piloted the Duke of Wellington across Piccadilly, and 
having expressed the great honor he felt in being so privi- 
leged, the Duke said, "Don't be a d d fool." Every- 
one likes flattery, Beaconsfield remarks, and when it 
comes to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel. 
How true it is, as observed by Dr. Johnson, that he that 
is much flattered soon learns to flatter himself. It is the 
opinion of James M. Barrie, that, gentle or simple, stupid 
or clever, the men are all alike in the hands of a woman 
that flatters them. 



162 LITERARY BREVITIES 

FOOLS 

SOLON thought the worst of fools those who once had 
wisdom. Henry James speaks of a certain man as a 
prize fool. Who was it that said, "I can stand any fool 

but a d d fool"? R. L. Stevenson thinks it better to 

be a fool than be dead. A camel wanted to have horns 
and they took away his ears, is from the Talmud. For 
fools are known by looking wise, is from Butler's "Hudi- 
bras." Bacon calls it folly to gather fruit before it is ripe, 
for fear it may be stolen. Epictetus speaks of taking 
up whey with a hook. Scott advises one who would do a 
foolish thing, to do it handsomely. Cellini observes, 
that God very often shows compassion to fools. Though 
we sometimes love an idiot, says Balzac, we never can 
love a fool. The same author calls it folly to throw paving 
stones at your head to drive away flies that alight on it. 
Sir Godfrey Kneller objected to being buried in West- 
minster Abbey, "because they do bury fools there." La 
Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. Says Thomas 
Gray, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." 
There is an unwritten law against making a fool of one- 
self. La Rochefoucauld says there is no fool like an old 
fool. Dr. Johnson speaks of one kind of economy as 
stopping one hole in a sieve. Foolitis is an incurable 
disease, Weir Mitchell observes. Qui necesse habent cum 
insanientibus fur ere, is from Petronius. According to 
the Spanish proverb, a wise man changes his mind, a 
fool never will. Rusticus exspectat dum defluat amnis, is 
anonymous. The Indian fells the tree that he may gather 
the fruit. He is a fool, says Homer, who only sees the 
mischiefs that are past. It is a remark of Sir Philip 
Sidney, that in all miseries lamenting becomes fools, and 
action, the wise. Tennyson thinks most young men with 



FOOLS 163 

anything in them make fools of themselves at some time 
or other. According to Thomas Fuller, all the whetting 
in the world can never set a razor's edge on what has no 
steel in it. The prime minister of the Sultan Mustapha 
was found, on the approach of the enemy, to be occupied 
in finding two canary birds that sang precisely the same 
notes. Shakspeare's professional fools are philosophers 
in disguise; so thinks Heraud. Balzac depicts for us 
poverty-stricken and superior men who can do everything 
for the fortune of others and nothing for their own, 
Aladdins who let other men borrow their lamps. If ever 
there was a man who did not derive more pain than 
pleasure from his vanity, that man, says Rousseau, was 
no other than a fool. All are fools and lovers first and 
last, says Dryden. This from Sophocles, — 

"Fools never know 
The treasure's value till the treasure's lost." 

More know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows, the English 
proverb teaches. Weir Mitchell thanks God for fools, 
and trusts there will be a few fool-angels; he thinks the 
worst of being a fool is, that experience is of no use. If 
thou hast never been a fool, observes Thackeray, be sure 
thou wilt never be a wise man. No precedents, says Dr. 
Johnson, can justify absurdity. I am not old enough to 
be a fool, remarked Addison. Garfield thought it a 
matter of no small difficulty to be a radical without being 
a fool. Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen 
hunt this weather? Shakspeare asks. Henry IV of 
France called James I of England the wisest fool in Chris- 
tendom. Lowell speaks of "as great an ass as ever brayed 
and thought it music." A certain woman who had over- 
drawn her account, wrote a check for the amount on the 
same bank and sent it to make her account good. Once 



164 LITERARY BREVITIES 

a man lighted a bonfire in his park and walked through it 
to get a foretaste of hell. A fool has been defined as one 
who never in his life tried an experiment. It was the 
belief of Napoleon, that only fools commit suicide. He 
is a fool who has nothing of philosophy in him, observes 
Samuel Butler, but not so much so as he who has nothing 
else but philosophy. Pope thinks no creature smarts so 
little as a fool. The folly of wearing a fine garment in 
the dark is like biting one's thumb at a blind man. Judge 
Hoar said his brother, the senator, knew a fool when he 
saw one, and could not resist the pleasure of telling him 
so. Following are lines from Dante, — 

"What boots it that for thee, Justinian 
The bridle mend, if empty be the saddle?" 

It'd only be waste of time to muzzle sheep, some one has 
said. From iEsop we learn, that the little viper licked 
the file until the blood came, and was flattered imagining 
the blood to come from the file. Cicero thinks it the 
part of every man to err, but the part only of a fool to 
persevere in error. 

FORGIVENESS 

SYDNEY SMITH calls attention to the fact, that the 
sandal wood, while it is felling, imparts to the ax its 
aromatic flavor. Pardon comes easily to the great, 
observes Andrew Lang. Bacon thinks nothing more 
popular than to forgive our enemies. Says Balzac, "I 
forgive as God forgives, madam, on certain conditions." 
The only way to get the better of the vanquished, remarks 
Victor Hugo, is to forgive them. 



FORTUNE 165 

FORTUNE 

ON the summit of fortune one abides not long, remarks 
Goethe. Xerxes, who had crossed the Hellespont 
on a bridge of boats, and with an army of five million men, 
recrossed, on his return, in a fishing boat and almost alone. 
Opportunity is of great consideration in matters of his- 
tory and biography. Sir Isaac Newton succeeded only 
because he lived at the right time. The burning of London 
gave Sir Christopher Wren the best possible opportunity 
for the exercise of his art. Good luck lies in odd numbers, 
says Shakspeare. Seneca observes, that what we fear as 
a rock proves to be a port. It was Cleon's idea, that 
ordinary good fortune is safer than extraordinary. Haw- 
thorne's removal from the Salem custom-house was the 
making of him. It was well remarked by one (and per- 
haps more), says Fielding, that misfortunes never come 
single. The next trump may be of another color. Eugene 
Sue advises putting a good face on a bad fortune. It is 
Balzac's belief, that chance is an immense equation of 
which we know not all the factors. Napoleon says one 
must not ask of fortune more than she can grant. Ac- 
cording to Balzac, it is more difficult to keep a level head 
in good than in bad fortune. Eugene Sue thinks mad 
people and fools are always lucky. According to Mrs. 
Frances Burnett's thinking, it is easier to bear one's 
own misfortunes than to bear the good fortune of 
better-used people; that the latter is the insult added 
by fate to injury. When I take a bitter pill, I don't 
chew it before swallowing. Calamity is the touchstone 
of a brave mind, says Seneca. The same says that a 
crust of bread, upon a pinch, is a greater present than 
an imperial crown. Voltaire thinks secret vexations 
are ever harder to bear than public calamities. As good 



166 LITERARY BREVITIES 

luck would have it, is in Shakspeare. The same great 
poet says, — 

"There is a tide in the affairs of men 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." 

And again, — "111 blows the wind that profits nobody"; 
also this, "Fortune brings in some boats that are not 
steered." Le Sage says tossing up for heads and tails is 
not his ruling passion. He unjustly accuses Neptune 
who suffers shipwreck a second time, Bacon asserts. 
Balzac speaks of starting from zero to make a fortune. It 
is remarked by Richelieu, that a good heart is the only 
remedy against fortune. It is Richelieu who asserts, that 
one may be saved from ruin by defeat. Some one has 
observed, that to make good friends is to make one's 
fortune. The following well-known lines are from 

Burns, — 

"The best laid schemes o' mice an* men 
Gang aft a-gley." 

Let the world, then, take notice, when fortune has the 
will to ruin a man, says Benvenuto Cellini, how many 
divers ways she takes. The simplicity of Jefferson's 
inauguration was said not to have been in accordance 
with intention; that he had planned for a coach and four, 
but his horses failed to reach Washington in time. It has 
been observed, that luck never helps a man who relies 
upon it; that mere chance is often the deciding point in 
a man's career. The most dazzling fortune, Fenelon 
observes, is but a flattering dream. Richelieu says there 
are times when Fortune begins but cannot complete her 
work. Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum, 
author unknown. Balzac pronounces resignation the last 
stage of man's misfortune. Le Sage places victory in the 
same blind family with fortune. Lowell thinks the mis- 



FRIENDSHIP 167 

fortunes hardest to bear are those which never occur. 
Macaulay thinks nothing is more favorable to the repu- 
tation of an author than to be succeeded by a race inferior 
to himself. 

FRIENDSHIP 

THE devil does not forsake his friends, is a statement 
of Schiller. Grimm, in his harangue to Rousseau, 
laid great stress upon always having preserved the same 
friends. It is a remark of Harold Frederic, that there 
was never any triad of friends since the world began, no 
matter how fond their ties, in which two did not build a 
little interior court of thoughts and sympathies from which 
the third was shut out. Izaak Walton says Lord Elles- 
mere did not account John Downe to be so much his 
servant as to forget he was his friend. Balzac thinks 
people as a rule make confidences to those beneath them 
rather than to those above them. According to Aristotle, 
all celebrated friendships have been between two. Idem 
velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est, is 
Sallust's. It is Seneca's observation, that we cannot 
choose our own parents, but our friends we can choose. 
Some one has remarked, that we are commanded to for- 
give our enemies, but nowhere to forgive our friends. 
Amid fures temporis, is anonymous. Canning prayed to 
be saved from a candid friend. Horace fought against 
Augustus at Philippi; yet subsequently there sprang up 
between them a friendship that has become proverbial. 
Some of the old artists called themselves after their 
teachers instead of taking their fathers' names. Weir 
Mitchell thinks friends add terribly to the responsi- 
bilities of life. When Burke heard that Goldsmith was 
dead, he burst into tears. When Joshua Reynolds heard 
the same, he laid down his palette and painted no more 



168 LITERARY BREVITIES 

that day. The most unrelenting enemies are those who 
were once fast friends. There is nothing to pardon where 
friendship is, says Landor. Instances of rare friendship 
are — David and Jonathan, Hercules and Hylas, Theseus 
and Perithous, and Orestes and Pylades. Birrell is 
authority for the statement, that a dispute as to the 
respective merits of Gray and Collins was known to result 
in a visit to an attorney and a revocation of a will. Dr. 
Johnson advises us to keep our friendships in repair. 
There is, perhaps, no surer mark of folly than an attempt 
to correct the natural infirmities of those we love; so 
says Fielding. The same writer calls a treacherous 
friend the most dangerous enemy. Macaulay speaks of 
George III and Grenville as resembling each other too 
much to be friends. Cicero advises a man to live with 
his enemy in such a manner as to leave him room to be- 
come his friend. Closest unions are those of opposites, 
Goethe thinks. True men of all creeds are brethren, says 
Carlyle. Pope thinks the best time to tell a friend any 
fault he has is while you are commending him. Pignus 
amicitiae exiguum ingentis, author unknown. Timeo 
Danaos et dona ferentes, is a fragment from Virgil. Emer- 
son and Ruskin once met, but unhappily neither was 
interested in the specialty of the other. Weir Mitchell 
thinks it one of the uses of friends, that we consider how 
such and such a thing we are moved to do might appear 
to them. Offences that can be pardoned, says Landor, 
should never be taken. He who interposes in the quarrels 
of relations, observes Balzac, must pass through life with- 
out a friend. We taste an intellectual pleasure twice, and 
with double the result, says Hawthorne, when we taste it 
with a friend. Short reckonings make long friends. Poe 
says near neighbors are seldom friends. It is a remark of 
Cervantes, that whoever undertakes a long journey, if 



FRIENDSHIP 169 

he is wise, makes it his business to find out an agreeable 
companion. He says again, "Nothing in the world can 
part us but the sexton's spade and shovel." The friend- 
ships of men, thinks R. L. Stevenson, are vastly agreeable, 
but they are insecure; life forces men apart and breaks 
up the good fellowship forever. To have friends, says 
Balzac, we must be friendly with young men. There are 
persons you meet and speak to daily for a dozen years 
without establishing anything like a real acquaintance; 
until at length some accident breaks down the hitherto 
impregnable barrier and cordial intimacy springs up. 
Scott tells of the rare hospitality of the Irish harper, who 
for want of firewood to cook a guest's supper committed 
his harp to the flames. What comes from the heart, says 
Coleridge, goes to the heart. Aristotle thinks friendship 
must be reciprocal. Pythagoras enjoins us not to leave 
the mark of a pot in the ashes. Some one has observed, 
that there is no surer mark of regard than to have your 
correspondent write nonsense to you. The Prince Regent, 
afterwards George IV, was on familiar terms with Scott, 
and used to call him "Walter." Scott enjoyed the friend- 
ship of his pigs and hens. God help me from my friends, 
says the Spanish proverb, and I will keep myself from my 
enemies. The close friendship that existed between 
Addison and Steele is one of the most memorable on 
record. Dr. Johnson declares, that no expectation is 
more frequently disappointed than that which arises in 
the mind from the prospect of meeting an old friend after 
a long separation. Fidelia vulnera amantis, author un- 
known. Advice lent unasked loses both self and friend, 
says Weir Mitchell. It is seldom, remarks Alison, that 
the prosperous want friends. In the same boat with 
thee to share thy fate, is from Sophocles. Balzac thinks 
friendship needs conspicuous qualities or defects. Napo- 



170 LITERARY BREVITIES 

leon once stood sentry for a soldier who had fallen asleep, 
and so saved him from being shot. Balzac assures us, 
that the alliance of antagonistic interests can never last 
long. To friendship every burden's light, is from John 
Gay. Dumas observes, that while the wife's friends are 
almost always the husband's, the husband's friends are 
rarely the wife's. It was the social maxim of La Roche- 
foucauld, to treat every friend as if he might one day be 
an enemy. It was a rule with Charles Reade, never to 
disapprove of his friends' friends. Goldsmith declared 
the friendships of travelers to be more transient than 
vernal snows. Epicurus admitted but two persons to 
familiarity with himself. Dr. Johnson pronounced Bos- 
well the best traveling companion in the world. Thomas 
Gray says a favorite has no friends. According to Mat- 
thew Arnold, even a true and feeling homage needs to be 
from time to time renewed, if the memory of its object 
is to endure. It is Cicero's belief, that true friendships 
are hard to find among men who busy themselves about 
politics and office. I put it down as a fact, writes Pascal, 
that if all men knew what each said of the other, there 
would not be four friends in the world. At Potidea Socra- 
tes and Alcibiades both occupied the same tent. The 
friendship between Burke and Johnson, the one a Whig, 
the other a Tory, was warm and lasted as long as they 
lived. A great man, says Swift, will do a favor for me, or 
for my friend; but why should he do it for my friend's 
friend? Browning got on comfortably with Carlyle. 
Every year adds its value to friendship as to a tree, 
Lowell observes. Some one has said, "The man I don't 
like is the man I don't know." Scott remarks, that no 
enemy can be so dangerous as an offended friend and 
confederate. Madame de Sevigne regards little atten- 
tions as a stronger proof of friendship than anything else. 



FRIENDSHIP 171 

He makes no friend who never made a foe, is Tennyson's. 
Scott is of the opinion, that the chain of friendship, 
however bright, does not stand the attrition of constant 
close contact. The worst solitude, says Bacon, is to want 
friendship. It is the advice of some one, that we should 
have sharers of our memories when life is nothing but 
memories. George Meredith declares it impossible to 
conciliate a withered affection. It is a suggestive thought 
of Hamerton, that real friendship can never be main- 
tained unless there is an equal readiness on both sides to 
be at some pains and trouble for its maintenance. By 
the same author we are reminded, that fate gives us our 
relations, while we select our friends. Voltaire compares 
his visit to Frederick at Aix la Chapelle to the familiar 
meeting of Terence and Scipio. People who go away are 
soon forgotten, says Ibsen. Somehow or other, says 
Lafcadio Hearn, wealth makes a sort of Chinese wall 
between friends. One of the most touching examples of 
friendship is that which existed between David and 
Jonathan, and it was best exemplified in David's care for 
Jonathan's son Mephibosheth after Jonathan's death. 
Samuel Butler speaks of some "under door-keeper's 
friend's friend." Amicitiae et libertati, was Bolingbroke's 
toast. You are the only woman in the kingdom, wrote 
Bussy to his charming cousin, who can persuade a lover 
to be contented with friendship. It has been said that 
friendship parts in poverty. Lewes says there is nothing 
presented in the history of literature comparable to the 
friendship of Goethe and Schiller. That between Addison 
and Steele is akin to it. Symonds thinks the chivalry of 
Greece found its motive in friendship rather than in the 
love of women. In the adversity of our best friends, La 
Rochefoucauld believes, we always find something which 
does not displease us. Madame De Tencin advised 



172 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Madame Geoffrin never to decline anybody 's acquaintance, 
to reject any friendly advances; for if nine acquaintances 
out of ten prove to be of no value, a single one may com- 
pensate for all the rest. Madame Geoffrin advises us 
not to let the grass grow in the pathway of friendship. 
It is a Quaker apothegm, to treat your enemy as if you 
thought he might some day become your friend, and your 
friend as though he might become your enemy. Petrarch 
has been called great in the delicate diplomacy of friend- 
ship. All know each other and Christian-name each 
other, author unknown. It is said to be a weakness of 
human nature, that we always love to hear our friends 
undervalued. Goethe thinks one can be a thoroughly 
good fellow without being exactly a Philistine. Blanche 
Howard thinks only shallow natures make friends easily. 
In the opinion of Leslie Stephen, of the qualities that 
make an agreeable companion one of the chief is an in- 
tuitive perception of the impression you are making. It 
has been observed, that an exile rarely finds a friend. It 
has been affirmed, that Fontenelle, who lived to be one 
hundred years old, never lost a friend. Brunetto Latini 
was Dante's teacher and friend, and yet for some reason 
Dante gave him a disreputable place in the Inferno. Three- 
cornered friendships are said to be as insecure as they are 
rare. Rosebery says of Chatham, "Men of his type are 
beyond friendship; they inspire awe, not affection; they 
have followers, admirers, and an envious host of enemies, 
rarely a friend." Swift was so much afflicted by the loss 
of friends by death, that he sometimes wished he had 
never had a friend. Friendship has been called that 
which warms but cannot burn. 



GENIUS 173 

GENIUS 

AMIEL remarks, that to do what is difficult for 
others is a mark of talent; to do what is impos- 
sible for talent is a mark of genius. Andrew 
Lang calls a certain writer "eminently uninspired." 
Victor Hugo asserts, that criticism cannot apply to genius. 
Thackeray says of one, that he is not one of those pre- 
mature geniuses whose much vaunted infantine talents 
disappear with adolescence. George Eliot was not pre- 
cocious as a child, as were Goethe and John Stuart Mill; 
she began her real literary career at the age of thirty-seven. 
We must have millions of men, says Amiel, in order to 
produce a few elect spirits; a thousand was enough in 
Greece. According to Carlyle, the gifted man is he who 
sees the essential point. Michelangelo was architect, 
sculptor, painter, and poet; he died in 1564, the year 
Shakspeare was born. Smollett called Edinburgh a hot- 
bed of genius. Napoleon succeeded by offensive opera- 
tions, he was too impatient for the defensive. Lowell 
thinks great character as rare a thing as great genius. 
Coleridge thinks there is something feminine in the coun- 
tenances of all men of genius. Montaigne is of the opin- 
ion that a strong memory is generally coupled with infirm 
judgment. Napoleon's head is thought to have been the 
largest and the best formed ever submitted to the inves- 
tigation of science. Balzac ventures the assertion, that 
the man who sees two centuries ahead of him dies on the 
scaffold. Beaconsfield would have you conciliatory, unless 
you are very clever. Mrs. Browning tells us, that Apollo 
taught Wordsworth under the laurels, while the Muses 
looked through the boughs. Gibbon, speaking of Ma- 
homet, remarks, that conversation enriches the under- 
standing, but solitude is the school of genius. Froude 



174 LITERARY BREVITIES 

thinks men of genius have tenacious memories. Swift 
says there is a brain that will bear but one skimming. 
Talent is what we have; genius is what has us, says Lowell. 
Horace Walpole mentions an old ballad-maker who by 
chance or natural insight obeyed all the precepts of 
Horace, and yet had never heard of that poet. It is an 
observation of Botsford, that a great man is, to some 
extent, the product of his time. Allan Cunningham says 
stupidity must toil like Caliban, while genius works its 
ready wonders like the wand of Prospero. Gainsborough 
was a confirmed painter at the age of twelve. According 
to Emerson, it is not what talent or genius a man has, 
but how he is to his talents, that constitutes friendship 
and character. The man that stands by himself, the uni- 
verse stands by him, says Emerson. Mediocrity is never 
attacked, says Balzac. Some one has stated the following, 
Caesar est supra grammaticam. Julius Caesar could dic- 
tate to five amanuenses at one time. Buffon's apothegm 
is, "Genius is patience." Taine characterizes intuition 
as a superior but dangerous faculty. Schlegel ascribes 
"terrific grace" to iEschylus. Creasy considers Marl- 
borough an incomparable general. Says Carlyle, "It must 
be for the power of producing such creations and emo- 
tions, that Goethe is by many ranked at the side of Homer 
and Shakspeare, as one of the only three men of genius 
that have ever lived." In Balzac's opinion, there are in 
some sort two periods of youth in every life — the youth 
of confident hopes, and the youth of action; sometimes 
in those whom nature has favored the two ages coincide, 
and then we have a Caesar, a Newton, or a Bonaparte. 
Edwin Markham describes genius as the power to take 
a hint. Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae 
est, is anonymous. No matter what genius does, says 
C. C. Everett, there will be found those who will admire 



GENIUS 175 

it. Balzac remarks, that what survives of a nation is 
the work of its men of genius. We are told by Beacons- 
field, that great men never want experience. It has been 
observed by some one, that to forget is the great secret of 
strong, creative natures. Napoleon had a wonderful 
memory, and was a natural mathematician; when young 
he could remember logarithms of more than thirty or 
forty figures. Said Napoleon, "I have fought sixty 
battles, and I learned nothing but what I knew when I 
fought the first; look at Caesar; he fought for the first 
time as he did the last." When a genius is needed, 
Miinsterberg asserts, democracy appoints a committee. 
General Sherman did not, when at West Point, discover 
extraordinary qualities, remaining a private throughout 
his four years' course. Lang calls Lucian "Prince of the 
Paradise of Mirth." Carlyle thinks Johnsons are rare, 
but Boswells rarer. Dumas calls Shakspeare "the great- 
est creator after God." Creasy declares one of the surest 
proofs of the genius of Louis XIV to have been his skill 
in finding out genius in others, and his promptness in 
calling it into action. Barrow presented a copy of Bacon's 
essays to his pupil, Sir Isaac Newton, saying it was a 
volume he gave only to those who were destined to be 
great. Macaulay always showed minute knowledge of 
subjects not introduced by himself. Dr. Johnson wrote 
his dictionary in nine years; the French Academy, forty 
members, spent forty years on a rival work. Emerson 
observes, that Napoleon was a man who in each moment 
and emergency knew what to do next. Shakspeare is the 
Proteus of human intellect, Hazlitt declares. Lyman 
Abbott pronounces Voltaire not a great man, for great 
men always build, and Voltaire only tore down; he had 
more wit than wisdom, more audacity than courage. 
Haller and Goethe are rare examples of men in whom both 



176 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the poetical and the scientific natures coexist. Creasy 
calls Alcibiades the Bolingbroke of antiquity; he also 
pronounces him the most complete example of genius 
without principle that history produces. Within one 
Olympiad, Landor asserts, three men departed from the 
world, who carried farther than any other three that ever 
dwelt upon it, reason, eloquence, and martial glory: 
Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Alexander. Jonathan Ed- 
wards read Locke's "Essay on the Human Understand- 
ing " at the age of fourteen. Plutarch extols Seneca's wit 
beyond all the Greeks. Hazlitt asserts, that if Goldsmith 
had never written anything but the two or three first 
chapters of " The Vicar of Wakefield," they would have 
stamped him as a man of genius. Browning alludes to 
"safe mediocrity." It is a remark of Heine, that the 
artist who has only talent retains to the end of his life the 
impulse to exercise that talent; while genius has already 
accomplished the highest; it is content; it goes home to 
Stratford-on-Avon, like William Shakspeare. Chester- 
ton declares, that in military matters an Oliver Cromwell 
will make every mistake known to strategy and yet win 
all his battles. He also says that while Napoleon was a 
despot like the rest, he was a despot who defied the pessi- 
mism of Europe and erased the word "impossible." It 
has been remarked by some one, that the greatest tri- 
umphs in ideal philosophy are allowed Socrates and Plato; 
in the art of mental analysis Aristotle is awarded the palm; 
while Bacon carries off the honors in physical science. 
There be that can pack the cards, says Bacon, who yet 
cannot play the game well. Bacon, eminent both as a 
writer and a speaker, was not a mathematician. Richelieu 
allows that Gustavus Adolphus, like Hannibal, knew how 
to conquer, but not how to use his victory. Swift says 
we ought not to make a man a bishop who does not love 



GENIUS 177 

divinity, or a general who does not love war; and he 
wonders why the Queen would make a man Lord Treasurer 
who does not love money. The greatest genius is not 
always equal to himself, remarks Balzac. It is an observa- 
tion of W. R. Thayer, that genius and ambition laugh at 
precedents. Byron praised Sheridan as the writer of the 
best comedy, the best opera, and the best oration of his 
time. To the man of genius, says James Sime, it is not 
granted to know a thousand things which every school- 
boy knows. If, says John Fiske, Tyler is small as com- 
pared with Jackson and Van Buren, he is great as compared 
with Pierce and Buchanan. Bulwer advises never trusting 
to genius for what can be obtained by labor. T. C. 
Munger thinks Shakspeare the most pathetic of men; 
for what is more pathetic than the unconscious posses- 
sion of great powers? Pascal was both a great writer 
and a great mathematician. Bulwer calls genius the 
enthusiasm for self-improvement. Mediocrity can talk, 
observes Disraeli, but it is for genius to observe. Les- 
sing thinks every man of genius above criticism. Goethe 
thinks that everything that is done by genius, as genius, 
is done unconsciously. There is, says Belloc, this weak- 
ness attaching to government by representation, that it 
presupposes an eminence in those elected. Genius is to 
be admired and not criticized, Lowell asserts. Birrell 
declares Southey to be one of those remarkable men whose 
observations are made for the first time. Goethe played 
the piano and cello, and drew beautifully. Says Biel- 
schowsky, "There is no great gift in this world which is 
not at the same time a burden to its possessor. Goethe 
suffered severely under the burden of his great natural 
gifts." Dr. John Brown marvels that genius so seldom 
serves God, and so often serves the devil. When we 
begin, remarks Sainte-Beuve, by knowing a great man in 



178 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the full force of his genius only, we imagine that he has 
never been without it. Lowell believes there is no work 
of genius which has not been the delight of mankind. It 
was a remark of Bacon, that reading makes a full man, 
writing an exact man, and speaking a ready man; Blaine 
said William Pitt Fessenden was all three. To say a 
thing that everybody has said before, as quietly as if no 
one had ever said it, — that, says Goethe, is originality. 
According to De Quincey, whatever is too original will 
be hated at first; it must slowly make a public for itself. 
Genius is a cruel disease, is Balzac's severe way of putting 
it. Without Goethe, no Bismarck, says Bielschowsky. 
What is not in man will never come out of him, says 
Goethe. Stonewall Jackson claimed "no genius for 
seeming." Charlemagne formed the plan of uniting the 
Danube and the Rhine by a canal, and even began the 
work; so Goethe informs us. W. D. Howells asserts, 
that poets and painters spring up where there was never 
a verse made or a picture seen. It is a remark of some 
one, that genius does what it must, but talent does what 
it can. Shakspeare is subtle, but in letters a foot high, 
Lowell declares. Phidias was at once sculptor, painter, 
and architect. Emerson says that Scott was not suffi- 
ciently alive to ideas to be a great man; but that while 
he has strong sense, humor, fancy, and humanity, — of 
imagination, in the high sense, he has little or nothing. 
Ferrero thinks political life is always perilous to a man of 
genius. When, says William James, a superior intellect 
and a psychopathic temperament coalesce in the same 
individual, we have the best possible condition of the 
kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical 
dictionaries. The following observation is from Lafcadio 
Hearn, — "I think that genius must have greater attri- 
butes than mere creative power to be called to the front 



GENIUS 179 

rank, — the thing created must be beautiful; I cannot 
content myself with ores and rough jewels; I see great 
beauty in Whitman, great force, great cosmical truths 
sung to mystical words; but the singer seems to me 
nevertheless barbaric; would Homer be Homer to us but 
for the billowy roar of his mighty verse?" Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, though allowing that men of ordinary talents 
may be highly satisfied with their own productions, thinks 
men of true genius never are. Lucky ideas occurred to 
Frederick the Great while playing the flute. Tolstoy 
praises the sound common sense of mediocrity. Balzac 
created something like two thousand characters. A 
genius sees what other people look at, is an epigram un- 
fortunately anonymous. Corot was offered £80 if he 
would be a painter, or £4,000 to start with, if he would be 
a shopkeeper. Leibnitz, wishing to confound Newton, sent 
him a difficult problem in mathematics, which Newton 
solved without difficulty and returned the next day. It 
is safe to say that a man never knows what nature has 
fitted him for till he tries. The Spectator thinks it shows 
a greater genius in Shakspeare to have drawn his Caliban 
than his Hotspur or his Julius Caesar. Emerson would 
judge of the splendor of a nation by the insignificance of 
great individuals in it. Lewes thinks no man ever repeated 
himself less than Goethe. According to Hamerton, a 
man's immediate neighbors are generally the very last 
persons to become aware of the nature of his powers or 
the value of his achievements. Speaking of Hamlet, 
Goethe says, "There is an oak-tree planted in a costly 
jar, which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its 
bosom; the root expands, the jar is shivered." Nothing 
excites inspiration like necessity, is remarked by Rossini. 
At the age of fifteen De Quincey wrote and spoke Greek 
fluently, and composed Greek verses in lyric measure. 



180 LITERARY BREVITIES 

At Lincoln Cathedral there is a beautiful painted window, 
which an apprentice made out of the pieces of glass which 
had been rejected by his master; it was so far superior 
to every other in the church that, according to tradition, 
the vanquished artist killed himself from mortification. 
Hay don thinks men of genius are bad teachers — too 
quick, too eager, and too violent if not comprehended. 
Mrs. Browning refers to Landor as one in whose hands the 
ashes of antiquity burn again. Thackeray confessed that 
Becky Sharp was too deep for him. Great minds scorn 
the beaten track, says Goldsmith, Mrs. Browning thinks 
men of genius are apt to love with their imaginations. 
Powerful beings will and wait, says Balzac. Ne sutor ultra 
crepidam, said Apelles. Hay don is convinced that the only 
gift from nature is the capacity to conquer it. The same 
asserts, that genius is sent into the world, not to obey laws, 
but to give them. Great geniuses, Carlyle observes, have 
the shortest biographies. It is Balzac's belief, that there 
are men who can never be replaced. It was said of Burke, 
that he chose his position like a fanatic and defended it 
like a philosopher. Margaret Fuller's husband Ossoli, a 
very handsome Italian, was almost illiterate; she secured 
for him a place in a sculptor's studio, where he proved quite 
incapable of instruction in sculpture. After four months' 
labor he produced a copy of a human foot, but with the 
great toe on the wrong side. Genius has big ears — on 
the inside, says Balzac. Coleridge calls mere talent the 
faculty of appropriating and applying the knowledge of 
others. 

GOSSIP 

THERE'S no telling where gossips get their crumbs, 
remarks George Meredith. Cut scandal's head 
off, said Garrick, still the tongue is wagging. It is ob- 



GOVERNMENT 181 

served by G. W. E. Russell, that, so far as he remembers, 
Shakspeare recognizes no male gossips. Addison says 
a gossip in politics is a slattern in her family. 

GOVERNMENT 

THE best government of all, says Jefferson, is the 
one that governs least. The framers of our con- 
stitution succeeded because they understood thoroughly 
all past forms of government, and framed the republic 
in the light of history. Locke, who framed the "Grand 
Model" for the Carolinas, although a great philosopher, 
failed because he evolved his government out of his inner 
consciousness. Macaulay thinks what in an age of good 
government is an evil may, in an age of grossly bad gov- 
ernment, be a blessing. The right kind of people may 
be well governed even under a bad constitution. The 
office of alderman was originally next in rank to that of 
king. Nescis, mi fill, quam parva sapientia regatur mun- 
dus, is a saying of Oxenstiern. It is a saying of Lincoln, 
that no man is good enough to govern another man with- 
out that other's consent. Burke has been called great 
because he brought thought to bear upon politics. Lan- 
dor says the Europeans called ours an infant state; then 
the first infant who ever kicked its mother down-stairs. 
We lose respect for a constitution if we change it too 
often. What an immortality to have written our Declara- 
tion of Independence! The will of the people, says J. Q. 
Adams, is the source of the happiness of the people, 
the end of all legitimate government on earth. Justin 
McCarthy declares, that the success of a motion in a leg- 
islative body depends much upon who brings it forward. 
It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty 
is to make them effective, as thinks Lord Bolingbroke. 



182 LITERARY BREVITIES 

The laws of Lycurgus were not allowed to be written. 
Sancho Panza thought it good to command, though it 
were but a flock of sheep. It is George Eliot's notion, 
that an absolute ruler needs to have at hand a man ca- 
pable of doing the meanest actions. Venice, in the thir- 
teenth century, was considered the most powerful state 
in Europe. P. F. Willert thinks the strength of a govern- 
ment depends upon the hold it has on public opinion and 
on the control of the revenues of the country. I allow, 
observes Macaulay, that hasty legislation is an evil; 
but reformers are compelled to legislate fast just because 
bigots will not legislate early. It was the saying of a 
Roman senator, that it were better to live where nothing 
is lawful, than where all things are lawful. John Mor- 
ley maintains, that Turgot, like Burke, held fast to the 
doctrine that everything must be done for the multitude, 
but nothing by them. Jefferson, in 1801, set the ex- 
ample of sending a written message to Congress when it 
opened, instead of appearing in person as his predeces- 
sors had done. It was a maxim of Louis XIV, that 
when any injury is done to the body of the state, it is 
not enough to repair the mischief, unless one adds some 
good thing which it had not before. It was the belief 
of Fenelon, that when a man is destined to govern men, 
he must love them for the love of God, and not expect to 
be loved by them. The same declares, that kings are 
made for subjects, not subjects for kings. Calhoun at 
one time proposed the election of two presidents, one from 
the North and one from the South. According to Fred- 
erick the Great, the strength of the state consists in the 
great men to whom nature seasonably gives birth in them. 
Up to the year 1820 there was no regular police in Lon- 
don. Kings, says Massillon, can be great only by render- 
ing themselves useful to the people. It is common to 



GREATNESS 183 

all systems of democracy, remarks Belloc, to demand a 
rotation in the distribution of power. E. P. Whipple 
thinks our first twenty presidents compare most favor- 
ably with any twenty consecutive kings of any country. 
In France, for one hundred and forty years — from Louis 
XIV to Louis Philippe, no eldest son of the king reigned. 
Herbert Spencer is of the opinion, that by association with 
rules that cannot be obeyed, those that can be obeyed 
lose their authority. By an English law enacted in 1489, 
it was unlawful to take out of the country any money in 
gold or silver, coined or uncoined, English or foreign, 
beyond the value of four angels. The Irish are said to 
have fought successfully the battles of every country 
but their own. 

GRATITUDE 

WE are a great deal apter to remember injuries 
than benefits, Seneca observes. Principles are 
ungrateful, says Balzac. A Jesuit missionary tells of 
native tribes of Brazil who possess no word corresponding 
to our word for "thanks," and who are utterly devoid of 
the idea of gratitude. Apropos of the saying that repub- 
lics are ungrateful, Dr. Holmes suggests that it might 
be truer to say they are forgetful; but history never 
forgets and never forgives. It was remarked by Eurip- 
ides, that one good turn deserves another. Richter ob- 
serves, that it is better to make presents in articles than 
in money; because gratitude for the latter is spent as soon 
as that is. 

GREATNESS 
QHAKSPEARE speaks as follows, — 

"Glory is like a circle in the water, 
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, 
'Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught." 



184 LITERARY BREVITIES 

By the same, — 

"Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
That he is grown so great? " 

And again, — 

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
Like a Colossus." 

Again, — 

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have great- 
ness thrust upon them." 

Gladstone would never accept a peerage, though it was 
several times offered him. The following are Shak- 
speare's: "They that stand high have many blasts to 
shake them"; "A crown or else a glorious tomb"; "Un- 
easy lies the head that wears a crown." Balzac speaks 
of one as too great to make any claim to greatness. Sen- 
eca would have it, that the true grandeur of soul takes 
everything for great that is enough. Plutarch thinks 
the elder Cato's reputation greater than his power, and 
his virtue to have been more admired than followed. 
Poe alludes to some one as a great man in a small way. 

HABIT 

IT was an affectation of Alexander to carry his head 
on one side; of Alcibiades to lisp; and of Cicero to 
tweak his nose. James G. Blaine observes, that the 
force that will arrest the first slow revolution of a wheel 
cannot stand before it when by unchecked velocity it 
has acquired a destructive momentum. George Sand 
speaks of making faces to the devil. Weir Mitchell says 
an archbishop would learn to swear in the army. A good 
habit, says some one, is as hard to break as a bad one. 
Gibbon took but little exercise. Nero never put on one 



HABIT 185 

garment twice. Demosthenes being taunted by iEschines, 
a man of pleasure, with the fact that his speeches smelt 
of the lamp, very pertly retorted, "There is great differ- 
ence between the object which you and I pursue by lamp- 
light." Dante is constantly alluding to his exile of nine- 
teen years, just as Montaigne constantly complains of 
his physical malady. The only way to be sure of being 
always on time is to be always a little ahead of time. 
It is a good habit always to go to dinner at once when 
summoned. It is an observation of J. A. Symonds, that 
we often think that we will lightly leave some ancient, 
strong habitual sin, of old time passionately cherished, 
of late grown burdensome; but not so easily may the new 
pure life be won; between our souls and it there stands 
the fury of the past. Parson Adams always carried his 
manuscript iEschylus with him, and always consulted 
it when in doubt. Balzac insists that no one can bid fare- 
well to a habit. Henry James says people have to get 
used to each other's charms as well as to their faults. 
R. L. Stevenson states, that Dr. Johnson's heart did not 
recoil before twenty-seven individual cups of tea. Thack- 
eray took no exercise. Rousseau was unable to reflect 
when he was not walking. Talent may be late in its 
unfolding, but habits of industrious application, unless 
formed early, are seldom formed at all. In classic times, 
every year boys went from house to house in the island 
of Rhodes, announcing the first arrival of the swallow, as 
the welcome harbinger of spring, and begging gifts in 
return for the good news. Carlyle regards habit the 
deepest law of human nature. Lamb says, "Use recon- 
ciles." In old Dutch taverns travelers were charged 
for the noise they made. Balzac thinks it easier to make 
a revolution than to improve the style of men's hats. 
It is a remark of Dr. Johnson, that the diminutive chains 



186 LITERARY BREVITIES 

of habit are seldom heavy enough to be felt, till they are 
too strong to be broken. Demosthenes was an early 
riser. Newton once spent twenty-four hours with his 
hands on the table; when he came out of his reverie he 
thought it was still the day before. Franklin's rule for 
sleep was between ten and four. He did not long observe 
his own rule. James Cook remarks, that no people are 
more averse to every kind of innovation than seamen. 
It is remarked by Lessing, that everyone acquires by 
degrees the habits of those with whom he associates. 
Balzac likens some one to the blacksmith's dog, that 
sleeps under the forge yet wakes at the sound of a sauce- 
pan. The same author says the habits of life form the 
soul, and the soul forms the countenance. Swift did not 
smoke, but snuffed up cut-and-dry tobacco. Rosebery 
informs us, that Fox never used notes, and Pitt rarely. 
James I had a bad habit of swearing. In his later years 
Wordsworth read little or nothing. Walter Pater thinks 
to acquire habits is failure in life. Barrett Wendell 
does not remember that he ever saw a French boy whittle 
a stick. According to Parkman, the early Jesuit mis- 
sionaries in Canada used no salt whatever. Henry S. 
Landor informs us, that people living at high latitudes 
seldom use tobacco. It is the opinion of Sir Arthur Helps, 
that the habit of deciding for himself, so indispensable to 
a man of business, is not to be gained by study; that 
decision is a thing that cannot be fully exercised until 
it is actually wanted. Life is but a tissue of habits, says 
Amiel. New climes don't change old manners, says 
Aristophanes. Some writer calls habit "ten times na- 
ture." Goethe's Egmont does not like to "leave the 
familiar habit of living and eating." Thackeray says 
David Hume never went to bed without his whist. Scipio 
Africanus is said to be the earliest example of a Roman 



HAPPINESS 187 

who shaved every day; from his time on, that is, from 
about 250 B.C., it was the Roman custom to wear no beard 
at all; no Roman ever wore the mustache alone. 

HAPPINESS 

GOETHE thinks nothing more intolerable than to 
hear people reckon up the pleasures they enjoy. 
The man, says G. I. Parsons, who devotes himself to the 
attainment of material ends is liable to find, when the 
goal is reached, that he is no longer capable of enjoying 
them. According to the wisdom of Seneca, misfortunes 
cannot be avoided, but they can be sweetened, if not over- 
come; and our lives may be made happy by philosophy. 
Di tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi, is from Hor- 
ace. Happy are they, Goethe remarks, who soon detect 
the chasm that lies between their wishes and their powers. 
Coleridge says, " Show me one couple unhappy merely on 
account of their limited circumstances, and I will show 
you ten who are wretched from other causes." Haw- 
thorne thinks mankind are getting so far beyond the 
childhood of their race, that they scorn to be happy any 
longer. Justin McCarthy doubts if any other queen ever 
had a married life so happy as that of Queen Victoria. 
Henry James thinks it a proof of cleverness to be happy 
without doing anything. No one truly knows happi- 
ness, says Amiel, who has not suffered, and the redeemed 
are happier than the elect. Seneca places felicity in the 
soul, not in the flesh. Balzac observes, that the thing the 
world pardons least is happiness, and, therefore, it is best 
to hide it. Dr. Radcliffe, Court Physician, in his bluff 
way told William III that he would not have his Maj- 
esty's two legs for his three kingdoms. George Sand 
would have happiness sought nowhere but in the fulfil- 



188 LITERARY BREVITIES 

ment of duty. Hawthorne advises taking opium to get 
a glimpse of heaven. Writes Goethe, "The thoughts 
we have had, the pictures we have seen, may be again 
called up before the mind and the imagination; but the 
heart is not so complaisant; it will not repeat its agree- 
able emotions." Your mode of happiness, remarks Cole- 
ridge, would make me miserable. From the Welsh we 
are taught, that God himself cannot procure good for the 
wicked. Feelingly sweet is stillness after storm, observes 
Wordsworth. Balzac thinks happiness makes us selfish. 
The same author asserts, that all human beings who miss 
their vocation are unhappy. Our content, says Shak- 
speare, is our best having. R. P. Halleck believes, that 
more than half our pleasure comes from anticipation. 
If I prefer a short pleasure to a lasting one, observes 
Locke, it is plain I cross my own happiness. Herbert 
Spencer calls happiness the most powerful of tonics. 
Hawthorne thinks that happiness comes incidentally, 
and that it is unwise to make it an object of pursuit. 
According to Eugene Sue, the happiness of the old is to 
see the young happy. Dr. Johnson judges some to be too 
eminent for happiness; he also declares, that no man 
can be happy in total idleness. To be suspended in 
limbo is to be neither in pain nor in glory. It is the sen- 
timent of Swift, that happiness is a perpetual passion of 
being well deceived. One is never so happy nor so un- 
happy as he imagines, thinks La Rochefoucauld. Felix 
Me tamen corvo quoque rarior albo, is a verse in Juvenal. 
How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear 
charmer away, is John Gay's. Balzac thinks nothing 
more utterly uninteresting than a happy man. He says 
again, that happiness has no history. Leigh Hunt's 
philosophy of life was, how to neutralize the disagreeable 
and make the best of what is before us. Power and 



HAPPINESS 189 

aim, observes Emerson, the two halves of felicity, seldom 
meet. It is very natural to change, thinks Le Sage, when 
we cannot be worse off. Irving, however, thinks a change 
is sometimes desirable even from bad to worse. Thack- 
eray observes, that the world deals good-naturedly with 
good-natured people. True happiness is indescribable, 
according to Rousseau; he remarks, that what he still 
wanted prevented him from enjoying what he had. It 
is an observation of Addison, that the utmost we can hope 
for in this world is contentment. Goethe thinks that 
nothing that calls back the remembrance of a happy 
moment can be insignificant. One element in happi- 
ness, Joubert believes, is to feel that we have deserved 
it. That which produces and maintains cheerfulness, 
Richter declares, is nothing but activity. Goodness, 
says Landor, does not more certainly make men happy 
than happiness makes them good. It was Gray's idea of 
heaven, to lounge on a sofa and read new novels. It was 
a maxim of Jefferson, that a mind always employed is 
always happy, that the idle are the only wretched. Sen- 
eca has the same thought, that no man is so miserable 
as he that is at a loss how to spend his time. Who'll 
say after this, that there are not days set apart for hap- 
piness? asks Eugene Sue. The same believes there is 
nothing so healthful as joy. Euripides records it as his 
belief, that youth holds no society with grief. Love and 
work, says Balzac, have the virtue of making a man 
indifferent to external circumstances. Pendennis felt 
sure of going to heaven, for his mother never could be 
happy there without him. Wealth and honor by no 
means insure happiness. Schiller declares that no happi- 
ness ripens in this world. Again he says, that no clock 
strikes ever for the happy. Call no man blessed before 
his death, is found in Ecclesiasticus, and also among 



190 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the wise sayings of Solon. Balzac thinks the soul is happy 
in making great efforts of whatever kind. Happiness, 
says Chateaubriand, consisteth not in possessing much, 
but in hoping much and loving much. Shall I not take 
mine ease in mine inn? asks Shakspeare's character. 
Lessing thinks it always better not to know who speaks 
ill of us. Shakspeare says, "I were but little happy, 
if I could tell how much." Lessing thinks it melancholy 
to be happy alone. The happier a man is, remarks 
Balzac, the greater are his fears. The same asks, "Where 
would be the pleasure of hunting a tame thing?" And 
once more he affirms, that nature only owes us life; it 
is society that owes us happiness. Pythagoras sacrificed 
one hundred oxen in consequence of having discovered 
that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled tri- 
angle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two 
sides. Blesses his stars and thinks it luxury, is Addi- 
son's. Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new, is 
Milton's. It was John Stuart Mill who, upon experien- 
cing the delights of Wordsworth's poems, said, "From 
them I seemed to learn what would be the perennial 
sources of happiness when all the greater evils of life shall 
have been removed." To enjoy happiness is a great 
blessing, remarks Bacon, but to confer it is a greater. 
In general, says Balzac, prescribed happiness is not the 
kind that any of us desire. To feel joy, we must be with 
joyous people, declares Mme. de Sevigne. In the opinion 
of Walter Raleigh, no one who is not capable of great hap- 
piness can be a highly moral being. Benson speaks of 
some one who contrives to give a great deal of happiness 
without having a program. The Greeks refused to speak 
of human happiness, lest the jealous deities should destroy 
it. Whoever can make others happy is happy himself, 
is anonymous. H. W. Dresser thinks it a matter of econ- 



HAPPINESS 191 

omy to be happy. Bielschowsky is convinced that there 
is no great, true happiness without pain. I have often 
thought, remarks Mrs. Browning, that it is happier not 
to do what one pleases. In the opinion of Aristotle, 
neither virtue nor happiness is obtainable apart from 
society. The Promised Land is the land where one is 
not, is AmiePs epigram. The same declares, that no one 
truly knows happiness who has not suffered. The hap- 
piness one can procure for others, George Sand asserts, is 
the purest and most certain one can procure for himself. 
It has been remarked by some one, that a man's existence 
may be so unhappy that the best punishment that could 
be inflicted upon him would be to leave him where he is. 
Children who have never known want get few deep 
draughts of joy, is by an unknown author. Young's 
"How blessings brighten as they take their flight," is 
like Landor's, "What we love is lovelier in departure." 
Of what avail, says Beckford, is the finest cage without 
birds to enliven it? Enough of sunshine to enjoy the 
shade, is Landor's. It is a saying of George Sand, that the 
wisdom of people in her position consists in knowing how 
to do without what we call happiness. It is a theory of 
Tolstoy, that a powerful means to secure true happiness 
in life is — without any rules — to spin in all directions, 
like a spider, a whole web of love to catch in it all that 
we can. You must aim at something else, observes John 
Stuart Mill, and then you may get happiness in the re- 
bound; those only are happy who have their minds fixed 
on some object other than their own happiness. True 
happiness is never loud nor manifest. Man, Erasmus 
declares, is only happy by the goods of the mind. It 
is the belief of Goethe, that we are happiest under the 
influence of innocent delusions. George Meredith thinks 
possession without obligation to the object possessed 



192 LITERARY BREVITIES 

approaches felicity. Nihil est ab omni parte beatum, is 
without a name. No man can be supremely happy long, 
says Carlyle. Happy the people, says Montesquieu, whose 
annals are blank in History — Books. Somebody has 
said, that happiness consists in searching for truth, and 
never finding it. To be happy, remarks George Moore, 
one must have an ideal and strive to live up to it. Con- 
genial labor is the secret of happiness, Benson thinks. 
Dr. Johnson assures us, that it is easy to laugh at the 
folly of him who, instead of enjoying the blessings of 
life, lets life glide away in preparations to enjoy them. 
Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happi- 
ness, is the opinion of Charlotte Bronte. It is a remark 
of Scott, that happiness depends so much less upon the 
quantity of fortune than upon the power of enjoying 
what we have. Sir Thomas Browne calls some one happy 
enough to pity Caesar. Grayson believes happiness to 
be nearly always a rebound from hard work. Boling- 
broke thought that in a little time, perhaps, he might 
have leisure to be happy. 

HASTE 

THERE is no way, says Richelieu, of doing two im- 
portant things at once. In good news never 
hurry; but in bad news not a moment is to be lost, is 
the advice of Napoleon. It is the idea of Hans Chris- 
tian Andersen, that everyone who goes before the coach 
of Time gets kicked or trampled down by its horses. 
The Rhine, says Hare, loses half its usefulness from the 
impetuosity of its current. 



HATRED 193 



HATRED 

IT is easier, declares Swift, to distrust a man because 
you dislike him, than to dislike him because you 
distrust him. Franklin relates an incident of a man on 
shipboard who refused to work at the pump to save the 
vessel from sinking, because by so doing he would save 
the life of an enemy who was also on board. I am will- 
ing to forgive all men except an American, is the sour 
remark of Dr. Johnson. The same writer believes, that 
treating your adversary with respect is giving him an 
advantage to which he is not entitled. Giorgione, just 
before breathing his last, gave orders that Titian should 
not attend his funeral. Balzac declares, that Frenchmen 
have too many distractions of mind to hate each other 
long. The blood-thirsty Jeffreys, Chief Justice of James 
II's time, said he could smell a Presbyterian forty miles. 
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo, is a line 
from Virgil. It is a damned humor in great men, Seneca 
remarks, that whom they wrong they hate. Hatred 
does not last long, so Pericles says. According to Vic- 
tor Hugo, it is one of the most difficult yet necessary things 
in life to learn to disdain. Angels bear no resentment, 
as Schiller affirms. The finest revenge, Balzac thinks, 
is the scorn of revenge. He also thinks the first requisi- 
tion of revenge to be dissimulation. Senator Hoar had 
a low estimate of the moral character of Wendell Phil- 
lips, and an unquenchable hatred of General B. F. Butler. 
The Russian Kropotof, in his funeral oration on 
"Balbus, my Dog," congratulated that animal on never 
having read Voltaire. Writes Shakspeare, — 

" — back- wounding calumny 
The whitest virtue strikes." 



194 LITERARY BREVITIES 

When a child, Walter Scott saw "As You Like It" played, 
and couldn't understand why brothers should quarrel. 
Balzac observed, that just as the one we love can do no 
wrong, so the one we hate can do nothing right. What 
dislikes are so deep-rooted, asks A. M. Rothschild, as 
those for which no adequate reason can be given? W. R. 
Thayer declares, that men do not hate a weakling. Bul- 
wer affirms, that the most irritable of all rancors is that 
nourished against one's nearest relations. Napoleon, 
when at St. Helena, made a legacy of ten thousand francs 
to a man who had attempted to assassinate Wellington. 
When brothers hate, observes Racine, their hatred knows 
no bounds. People grow to like what they do. The Duke 
of Wellington, on the anniversary of the battle of Water- 
loo, was surrounded by an angry mob, and was obliged 
to call the police to his assistance. If a man is subject to 
revenge, observes Richelieu, to put him in authority is 
to put a sword in the hand of a madman. The Athenian 
citizen who, after all his comrades had perished in the 
unfortunate expedition to the island of iEgina, returned 
home alone, was attacked by the widows of the slain war- 
riors, and put to death by their pricking him with bod- 
kins. The newspapers, angered at the Jay treaty, called 
Washington the "Step-father of his country." Egina 
bit off her tongue and spit it in the tyrant's face. Landor 
declares it to be the destiny of the poor to be despised, 
and the privilege of the illustrious to be hated. George 
Meredith would have us be suspicious of those we hate. 
Cowper, in view of Dr. Johnson's most industrious cru- 
elty in disparaging the character and writings of Mil- 
ton, says, "Oh! I could thrash his old jacket till I made 
his pension jingle in his pockets." Huxley likes to show 
his contempt for Bacon. We are told that envy always 
dogs the footsteps of merit. Brooks make even worse 



HEALTH 195 

neighbors than oceans, Landor observes. The man pos- 
sessed by jealousy, says George Meredith, is never in need 
of matter for it. Harold Skimpole thought it might be 
in the scheme of things, that A should squint to make B 
happier in looking straight. Bismarck reminds us, that 
revenge is a delicacy that should be eaten cold. 

HEALTH 

PARS sanitatis velle sanari, is Seneca's. Weir Mitchell 
has discovered that since the mamas have begun 
to to keep thermometers the doctor has no peace. 
A certain Lord Russell who had spoiled his constitution 
by luxurious living, though being quite averse to sport, 
used to go out with his dogs every day only to hunt for 
an appetite. Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore 
sano, is Juvenal's famous verse. The first wealth is 
health, says Emerson. Weir Mitchell thinks it is some- 
times the body that saves the soul. The following is 
Browning's, — 

"But the soul is not the body, and the breath is not the flute; 
Both together make the music; either marred and all is mute." 

Franklin would have it, that nine men in ten are suicides. 
Addison thinks health and cheerfulness mutually beget 
each other. Voltaire, Goethe, and Scott were at the time 
of their birth all so feeble as not to be thought worth 
raising. Balzac alludes to a woman whose health was 
not coarsely apparent. It is an observation of Walt 
Whitman, that only health puts you rapport with the 
universe. G. W. E. Russell declares there's nothing so 
good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse. 
Dr. Baillie advised his patient to take exercise; the lat- 
ter claiming that he had no time for it, Dr. B. asked, 



196 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"Have you time to die, sir?" Dr. Arnold somewhat 
boastfully asserted, "When I find that I cannot run up 
the library stairs, I shall know it is time for me to go." 
Plato had such a high opinion of exercise, that he said it 
was a cure for a wounded conscience. Self-unconscious- 
ness is by some considered a test of health. Health first, 
beauty next, wealth third, is the burden of the old song. 
There is nothing worse, observes Tolstoy, than to confess 
being in low spirits. 

HEREDITY 

THE Germans have a saying, that one cannot be 
too careful in the selection of his parents. Emer- 
son is of the opinion, that all great men come out of the 
middle classes. Turner, the celebrated English landscape 
painter, was the son of a London barber. His mother 
had a bad temper and became insane. Emerson asserts, 
what is essentially true, that no great man ever had a 
great son; the few exceptions, perhaps, prove the rule. 
The mother of Alexander the Great was of a violent 
temper, jealous, cruel, and vindictive, and loved tame 
snakes. If we could trace our descents, observes Seneca, 
we should find all slaves to come from princes and all 
princes from slaves. The Argyles illustrate the fact, that 
a man of weak character and intellect may have ances- 
tors and descendants who are strong in both these par- 
ticulars. Rienzi's father was an inn-keeper and his mother 
a washerwoman; he, however, had the advantage of a 
liberal education. The philosopher Locke was not his 
mother's child, but took his strong qualities from his 
father. The Carlyles all had big heads. Balzac thinks 
a child takes its blood from the father and its nervous sys- 
tem from the mother. It is a pertinent remark of William 



HEROISM 197 

Winter, that while all men may be free and equal in the 
eye of the law, all men are, in fact, unequal, since every 
man is subject to heredity and circumstance. Tenny- 
son was the son of a clergyman. Thomas Carlyle was the 
son of a stone mason, and George Eliot the daughter of a 
carpenter; the former one of the greatest English-speak- 
ing men of his century, the latter, perhaps, the greatest 
intellect among women. Plautus and Terence, among 
the earliest Roman poets, were both of low extraction. 
Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors, says 
Emerson. It is Schopenhauer's doctrine, that men of 
genius inherit their gifts from their mothers. Blood never 
lies, is an observation by Sainte-Beuve. Balzac, the 
Shakspeare among novelists, was said to be totally with- 
out literary ancestry. Amiel asserts, that a man may be 
born rich and noble, but that he is not born a gentleman. 
There is a saying among the Scotch, that an ounce of 
mother is worth a pound of clergy. George Meredith 
thinks it requires a line of ancestry to train a man's 
taste. But little is known of Voltaire's parents or other 
kindred. Herodotus remarks, that the son of a herald 
is of course a herald; and if any man hath a louder voice, 
it goes for nothing. It is Ibsen's belief, that nearly all 
men who go to ruin early have had untruthful mothers. 
If you wish to be virtuous, observes Victor Hugo, educate 
your grandfathers. 

HEROISM 

IT is remarked by Hawthorne, that the greatest ob- 
stacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may 
not prove oneself a fool; that the truest heroism is to re- 
sist the doubt, and the profoundest wisdom, to know 
when it ought to be resisted, and when obeyed. Pres- 
cott would rather not meddle with heroes who have not 



198 LITERARY BREVITIES 

been under ground two centuries at least. In Landor's 
opinion, no fighting man was ever at once so great and 
so good a man as Blake. All conquerors, says Joubert, 
have had something coarse in their views, their genius, 
and their character. This from Walt Whitman, — 

"And there is no trade or employment but the 
Young man following it may become a hero." 

HISTORY 

THE year 1492 is distinguished not only for the 
discovery of America, but for the termination of 
Mohammedan power in Spain, after a continuance of 
eight centuries. Shakspeare, Montaigne, Tasso, and 
Cervantes, of the sixteenth century, were all born within 
a period of thirty-two years. In the summer of 1777, 
while in New Jersey, Washington was cruelly censured 
for too great caution and inactivity, though afterwards 
his course was declared wise. Grote thinks the exag- 
gerated desire of each Grecian city for autonomy was the 
chief cause of the short duration of Grecian freedom. 
Gymnastic games were of such importance in Greece, 
that they determined Greek chronology. It was in York, 
in the year 500, that, by the order of King Arthur, the 
first Christmas was kept in England. During the one 
hundred and sixty years which preceded the union of the 
Roses in England, nine kings reigned; six of these were 
deposed, five of whom lost their lives as well as their 
crowns. The most eventful act in the world's history, 
Dowden affirms, is an inward decision of the will — the 
simple matter of eating an apple. The Monroe Doctrine 
was first suggested by George Canning, the English states- 
man. Germany gave to the world gun-powder, printing, 
and the Protestant religion. The Greek and Roman 



HISTORY 199 

historians generally had some personal acquaintance with 
the affairs they chronicled. Not to know the ancients, 
says Richter, is to be an ephemeron, which neither sees 
the sun rise nor set. Windsor Castle was built by Edward 
III. Birrell observes, that unless historians have good 
styles, they are so hard to read, and if they have good 
styles, they are so apt to lie. It is the judgment of Fer- 
rero, that in history the distortings of truth are much 
more numerous than are inventions. Henry III, in the 
thirteenth century, granted a charter to Newcastle to dig 
coal — the first mention of coal in England. William 
the Silent, Prince of Orange, was great-grandfather of 
William III of England. The battle of Sedgemoor, be- 
tween Monmouth and Feversham, is the last worth the 
name that has been fought on English soil. Longstreet, 
speaking of invading Pennsylvania, expressed it as his 
opinion, that the only hope the Confederates had was in 
out-generaling the Federals. John Adams and Thomas 
Jefferson both died on the Fourth of July, 1826, just fifty 
years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 
The record of the Peloponnesian war by Thucydides 
has been pronounced the greatest historical narrative 
in the world. Sir George Rooke commanded the 
English fleet which, in 1704, in the War of the Spanish 
Succession, took Gibraltar. According to Goldwin Smith, 
there is no more romantic period in the history of human 
intellect than the thirteenth century. Constantine 
thought at first of building Constantinople on the site of 
ancient Troy. At the battle of Hastings, where Harold 
lost his life, William the Conqueror had three horses killed 
under him. When Xerxes was preparing to invade 
Greece, the bridges over the Hellespont were broken up 
by a storm; upon this Xerxes had the Hellespont scourged 
with three hundred lashes and had the engineers be- 



200 LITERARY BREVITIES 

headed. The only accession which the Roman empire 
received during the first century of the Christian era 
was the province of Britain. The Whigs elected but two 
presidents — Harrison and Taylor, and both died after 
serving, the former but a month, the latter less than two 
years. Some one defines history as the sum of the biog- 
raphies of a few strong men. In the year 1805 every 
legitimate monarch in Europe was imbecile, so Emerson 
declares. Louis XIV, after forty years of remarkable 
success, saw his glorious conquests pass away. Almost 
every place prominently mentioned in the Bible is now 
under Mohammedan rule. Petrarch is commonly called 
the first modern man. When Sextus Pompey was enter- 
taining Augustus Caesar and Antony on shipboard, one 
of his captains asked him if he should not cut off the 
anchors and make Pompey master of the Roman world. 
Pompey 's reply was, "You should have done it without 
consulting me." The first steamship to cross the Atlan- 
tic, in 1819, was named the Savannah and was built in 
New York. Louis XVI, who came to the French throne 
in 1774, was the grandson of Louis XV, who had reigned 
fifty-nine years. Until the time of Julius Caesar the week 
of seven days was unknown to the Greeks and Romans. 
At the close of the Peloponnesian war Lysander was loaded 
with golden crowns, voted to him by the various Grecian 
cities. Sugar was almost unknown in Europe until the 
Crusades. Five attempts were made upon Queen Vic- 
toria's life. Of the two European republics of the eight- 
eenth century, one was at the source of the Rhine, the 
other at its mouth. The real point settled by the dethrone- 
ment of James II was, that the ruler of England must 
be a Protestant. The battle of Tours, in which Charles 
Martel defeated the Saracens in 732, has been pronounced 
one of the decisive battles of the world, as it freed Europe 



HISTORY 201 

from Mohammedan rule. It is interesting to reflect, 
that nearly every prominent European nation has at some 
time held the political or intellectual supremacy over 
all the others. Dante was born three hundred years 
lacking one before the birth of Shakspeare; Petrarch and 
Boccaccio were about fifty years later than Dante. For 
about three hundred years the Arabs led the world in 
civilization. The Triple Alliance was a union between 
England, Holland, and Sweden against France, in the 
time of Charles II and Louis XIV, forty years after the 
death of Gustavus Adolphus. It was Philip of Mace- 
don before whom the woman appealed from "Philip 
drunk to Philip sober." The Turks, under Mahomet 
II, took Constantinople in 1453. The terms "Red 
Rose," of the house of Lancaster, and "White Rose," of 
the house of York, were applied after Edward IV became 
king. The greatest of the battles of the Wars of the 
Roses was that of Towton, a Yorkshire village near Leeds, 
where on March 29, 1461, the Yorkists under Edward 
IV defeated the Lancastrians under Henry VI and 
Margaret. Harvard has been prolific in historians; 
witness Bancroft, Motley, Sparks, Palfrey, Parkman, 
and Fiske. During the six years of its existence the 
Association of Brook Farm never numbered more than 
one hundred and twenty persons at one time; probably 
from first to last two hundred persons were connected 
with it. The American Indian, when first discovered, was 
an oyster eater. Henry IV of England found his crooked 
way to the throne in 1399. At a conference of Spartans, 
Argaeans, and Corinthians, held at Corinth, the Corinth- 
ians simulated an earthquake, so as to adjourn the confer- 
ence and gain time. There were thirteen battles between 
the houses of York and Lancaster, that of Bosworth Field 
being the last. There was no dueling among the Greeks 



202 LITERARY BREVITIES 

and Romans. There are sixty or seventy pyramids in 
Egypt; the Great Pyramid, Cheops, is five hundred feet 
in height and covers an area of over thirteen acres. Wind- 
mills were first used in Asia Minor. The population of 
ancient Rome has been estimated as high as two millions. 
The Ptolemies descended from one of Alexander's generals. 
England had no census until 1665. Robert Bruce de- 
feated Edward II in the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. 
In the latter part of the twelfth century, Henry II sub- 
dued Ireland and annexed it to the English crown, though 
it was not brought under complete subjection until the 
reign of Elizabeth. The Normans, to preserve the knowl- 
edge of families and pedigrees, introduced the use of sur- 
names into England. Schiller declares impartiality to 
be the most sacred obligation of the historian. The first 
lesson of history, says Emerson, is the good of evil. 
Macaulay remarks concerning the resolution that declared 
the abdication of James II, "In fact the one beauty 
of the resolution is its inconsistency; they cared little 
whether their major agreed with their conclusion, if 
the major secured two hundred votes and the conclusion 
two hundred more." The same authority would have 
it, that the highest eulogy which can be pronounced on 
the revolution of 1688 is this, that it was England's last 
revolution. When William the Conqueror landed near 
Hastings, he accidentally fell, striking both hands upon 
the ground. His followers cried out, "Bad omen." He 
reassured them by saying it was a sign he had taken pos- 
session of England. Again, when he was putting on his 
hauberk before the battle of Hastings, he got the hinder 
part before. After changing it, he said the change signi- 
fied a change in his name, from duke to king. A custom- 
house officer notified his submission to the royal will of 
James II in the following words, "I have fourteen reasons 



HISTORY 203 

for obeying His Majesty's commands, a wife and thirteen 
young children." Some one is responsible for the state- 
ment, that Julius Caesar introduced the use of "you" 
instead of "thou." The Locrians admitted only two laws 
in two hundred years, because he who proposed to estab- 
lish or change one had to come with a halter around his 
neck, and was strangled if his law was rejected. The 
Emperor Hostilianus brought much reproach upon him- 
self for offering an annual payment of tribute to the 
Goths if they would leave the Roman Empire unmolested. 
An innovation of Constantine, the dividing of the army 
into two classes, "Palatines" and "Borderers," was 
preparatory to the ruin of the empire. Chrysostom 
observes, that of the Emperors who had reigned in his 
time only two, Constantine and Constantius, died a nat- 
ural death. The Essex was the first United States ship 
of war to double both the Cape of Good Hope and Cape 
Horn. With the exception of CortereaPs slight explora- 
tions along the Atlantic coast, Portugal took no part in 
American discovery. In the heroic times in Greece 
the guilt of murder was expiated by a pecuniary satisfac- 
tion to the family of the deceased. Tarik, with his Sara- 
cens, gained a foot-hold in Spain in 710 a.d. The elder 
Pliny lost his life by suffocation in consequence of ventur- 
ing too near burning Vesuvius. The name Great Britain 
was applied to distinguish the island from Brittany in 
France. According to Bancroft, the authors of the Amer- 
ican Revolution avowed their object to be the welfare 
of mankind. Sir Robert Walpole, in 1724, entrusted the 
American colonies to the Duke of Newcastle, a man 
whose deficiency in geographical knowledge was such that 
he thought New England an island. Robin Hood and 
Ivanhoe were contemporary with Henry II and Richard 
I. Since the time of Constantine, Rome has been burned 



204 LITERARY BREVITIES 

seven times. Bancroft pronounces the victory of Wolfe 
over Montcalm in 1759 one of the most momentous in 
the annals of mankind; and yet only five thousand men 
were engaged on either side. The same historian thinks 
it to be on account of pleasing associations that the 
common people of England reverence the peerage; since 
Magna Charta was obtained only by the aid of the bar- 
ons; moreover, the revolution of 1688 was made pos- 
sible only by the aid of the nobility and gentry. Lord 
Mansfield rebuked those who expressed contempt for the 
book of Otis as the work of a madman, declaring that 
one madman often makes many; that Masaniello was 
mad; nobody doubted it; yet, for that, he overturned 
the government of Naples. At the time the stamp act 
was thrust upon America, no one thought it would be 
resisted, though many thought it unwise and unjust. 
The warm winter of 1775-6, at Boston, was believed to 
be providential, as it was favorable to the shut-in people. 
During the riot in New York, in July, 1776, an equestrian 
statue of George III was thrown down, and the lead of 
which it was formed was cut up and run into bullets. 
Pennsylvania was called the Key-stone State because it 
had six of the original thirteen above and six below it. 
The great war between Greece and Persia was decided 
by four battles — two by land and two by sea. The 
Lacedaemonians voted viva voce, and when it was doubt- 
ful which party made the louder cry, they "divided the 
house" as we do. Pope Urban II proclaimed the first 
crusade in 1095. There was a most disastrous plague all 
over the Roman Empire from 250 to 265 a.d. Emerson 
thinks there is less intention in history than we ascribe 
to it. The French had the lion's share in the glory 
of Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown. Until the reign 
of Peter .the Great, Russia was called Muscovy. The 



HISTORY 205 

Dutch Republic was the second power to recognize the 
independence of the United States, doing so in 1782. The 
Greek and Roman historians treated almost wholly of 
wars. The pay of an Athenian sailor in the fleet which 
went against Syracuse in 415 B.C., was eighteen cents a 
day. If, says Coleridge, men could learn from history, 
what lessons it might teach us! but passion and party 
blind us, and the light which experience gives is a lantern 
on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us. 
Nobility became hereditary in Europe in the 13th 
century. In the time of Henry II the Archbishops of 
Canterbury and York, with their respective followers, 
had a pitched battle to decide which should take prece- 
dence, Canterbury coming out the winner. Henry III 
reigned fifty-six years; George III and Victoria each 
reigned still longer. In the fourth dynasty, about 4000 
B.C., Khufu built Cheops, the largest of the pyramids. 
Pope Hadrian IV is the only Englishman who has ever sat 
upon the papal throne; his time was the twelfth century. 
The House of Commons chose a speaker for the first time 
in 1377, in the reign of Richard II. The Wat Tyler 
affair was in the same reign. Hume tells us, that after 
the repulse of the Yorkists at the passage of Ferrybridge, 
the Earl of Warwick stabbed his horse in presence of his 
army, and kissing the hilt of his sword swore that he was 
determined to share the fate of the meanest soldier. If 
the United States had refused to give up Mason and 
Slidell, her action would have comported with England's 
claim of the right of search and impressment in the War 
of 1812, and would have been contrary to our own position 
taken in that war. William the Conqueror ordered the 
compilation of the Domesday Book in 1085. This con- 
tained a full account of the population, ownership, and 
resources of every shire in England. At the battle of 



206 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Marathon there fell, of the Persians, 6,400; of the Athe- 
nians, 192. King Alfred is regarded as the father of the 
English navy. The battle of La Hogue, 1692, was the 
first check ever given to Louis XIV, and the first English 
victory over the French after the battle of Agincourt. 
After the battle of Salamis each of the Greek generals 
voted himself deserving the first honor, but all gave The- 
mistocles the second place. France first assumed the title 
" Republic " September 20, 1792. Out of the thirty-six 
barons who signed Magna Charta in 1215, only three 
signed with their names. The ropes with which the slaves 
hauled timbers for the fleet at Carthage were partly made 
of the hair of patriotic women. Gold was first coined in 
England in 1344. Chancellor Livingston furnished Rob- 
ert Fulton with the money to build his steamboat. Poetry 
is truer than history, Aristotle thinks. In Thebes, in 
the fourth century, B.C., prisoners were set free to assist 
in riot and assassination. Diocletian abdicated, as did 
Charles V, of Spain, and, like Ovid, took delight in rais- 
ing cabbages in his retirement. A great mob of Pompey's 
friends once shouted so loudly in denunciation of a pro- 
posal from the opposition, that a crow flying over fell 
dead from fright. The Scythians, when in the field and 
without provisions, would wound their horses to drink 
the blood. When Rome was at the height of her power, 
within the empire each year, so Flaxman informs us, 
20,000 gladiators were sacrificed in the amphitheatres. 
According to the same authority, at the time Athens 
contained 12,000 free citizens, it contained 120,000 slaves. 
The question of American independence was in fact deter- 
mined on the 2nd of July, though the 4th was settled upon 
as the date of the anniversary. Memoirs are the back- 
stairs of history, George Meredith remarks. The ancients 
did not use oak in shipbuilding. It is a declaration of 



HISTORY 207 

John Fiske, that in the making of a historian there should 
enter something of the philosopher, something of the 
naturalist, and something of the poet. The history of 
Germany and that of France, as separate nations, begins 
with 843, nineteen years after the death of Charlemagne. 
A historian, says Voltaire, should be a man of no coun- 
try and of no party. "And Boyne be sung when it has 
ceased to flow," is Addison's famous line. J. P. Lange 
asserts, that Sparta perished when the whole land of the 
country belonged to one hundred families; that Rome's 
evil day came when a proletariat of millions stood opposed 
to a few thousands of proprietors, whose resources were 
so enormous that Crassus considered no one rich who 
could not maintain an army at his own expense. The 
year 1755, the first of the Seven Years' War (the 3rd 
Silesian), was the year of the Lisbon earthquake. Em- 
press Eugenie's vessel was the first to go through the Suez 
Canal. In the thirty years preceding 1860, Mexico had 
between sixty and seventy presidents, according to John 
Bigelow. Louis XI and Lorenzo de' Medici were con- 
temporaries. Sulla, who had ordered Marius's remains 
to be taken from his grave and thrown into the Arno, 
ordered his own body to be burned, fearing that other- 
wise the same indignity might be visited upon himself. 
William Rufus was a bachelor king. Tacitus says Caesar 
rather discovered Britain than conquered it. A contro- 
versy about the merits of a hound, arising between two 
German friends named Guelf and Ghibelline, as they 
were returning from the chase, caused these two friends 
to become deadly enemies. The friends of each took up 
the quarrel, which soon drew the Emperor Frederick I 
to the side of the Ghibellines and Pope Honorius II 
to that of the Guelf s; in 1215 the feud spread throughout 
Italy. Rosebery states, that Napoleon's household at 



208 LITERARY BREVITIES 

St. Helena numbered fifty-one persons in all. The first 
genuine newspaper in England was The English Mercu- 
rie; it was printed in 1588, to prevent false reports in 
connection with the Spanish Armada. The abolishment 
of Parliament by Charles I, an act which cost him his 
head, was but following the example of Elizabeth. No 
copper money was coined in England until the time of 
James I. Carlyle states, that Queen Elizabeth was the 
first person in England to wear knit stockings. The 
term Roundhead, by which the opponents of Charles I 
were called, was first applied by Queen Henrietta, Charles's 
wife. When Lord Mountjoy was taken prisoner at the 
siege of Rochelle, Louis XIII released him without the 
payment of a ransom, out of regard for his sister, queen 
to Charles I — an example Agnes Strickland calls the 
precedent for the best amelioration of the horrors of war 
since the institution of Christianity. 

HONESTY 

IF in your own judgment, remarks Lincoln, you can- 
not be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without 
being a lawyer. He was not the man to call an earthquake 
a seismic disturbance, as stated by some one. The 
human soul, says Smollett, will generally be found most 
defective in the article of candor. There are men who 
will break without scruple most of the ten commandments, 
and yet will scorn to accept a bribe or betray a trust. 
A profound conviction, Balzac declares, cannot be argued 
with. Lowell confesses to a strong sympathy with men 
who sacrificed everything to a bad cause which they 
could see only the good side of. Balzac thinks it not 
enough for a man to be honest, but that he must appear 
so. Mention has been made of a man so honest that you 



HONESTY 209 

might play odd and even with him in the dark. Joubert 
asserts, that Englishmen are honorable in their private 
affairs, but dishonorable in the affairs of their coun- 
try. Sir John Drinkwater, an English magistrate, while 
sitting on the magisterial bench, was known to pull out 
a crown-piece and hand it to the clerk, with the remark, 
"Mr. Clerk, I was drunk last night; there are my five 
shillings." It is extraordinary, says Landor, to possess 
power and remain honest. Rousseau, or anyone else, is 
a fool to confess all the weaknesses of his character. 
Phocion, finding himself applauded, demanded of his 
friends whether he had not uttered something foolish. 
Balzac thinks the pure in mind have a superb disdain for 
appearances. 

HONOR 

IT is claimed that bribing a juror at Rome in the time 
of Cicero was no more disgraceful than bribing a 
voter now. Rectitude is a perpetual victory, Emerson 
declares. It is a remark of Thucydides, that the true path 
of expediency is the path of right. Nulla est enim laus 
ibi esse integrum, ubi nemo est qui aut possit aut conetur 
corrumpere, is a remark of Cicero. A candid evangelist, 
observes Blackie, is generally a black sheep to his brethren. 
Honesty is fled with Astraea, writes Swift. What's the 
use of being in parliament, observes one of Thackeray's 
characters, if you have to pay your debts? Balzac de- 
clares, that a thorough rogue never gets caught. The 
following statement is by Senator Hoar, — "I am strongly 
tempted to say, but I do not say it, that there are occa- 
sions in life where the meanest thing a man can do is to do 
perfectly right." Cromwell said to young Lely, "Paint 
me as I am." Of all the secret crimes buried in the 
mysteries of private life, one of the vilest and most dis- 



210 LITERARY BREVITIES 

honoring, declares Balzac, is that of opening a letter and 
reading it surreptitiously. Steele pronounces barbarity to 
be the ignorance of true honor. It was highly disgrace- 
ful for any Grecian state to be excluded from the Olympic 
festivals at Elis. Honors change manners, Cervantes 
remarks. John Quincy Adams never accepted gifts. 
Once a bookseller sent him an elegant copy of the Scrip- 
tures; he returned the equivalent in money. This from 
Addison, — 

"When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, 
The post of honor is a private station." 

It has been affirmed, that in seditions bad men rise to 
honor. For new made honors do forget men's names, is 
Shakspeare's. The conqueror in one of the Olympic games 
was crowned with olive, drawn to the city in a chariot 
by four horses, and a breach was made in the wall for 
his entrance, this on the authority of Flaxman. The 
Venetians were determined upon making a certain man 
doge; upon his persistent refusal they threatened him with 
banishment if he did not accept. The following is from 
the mouth of Richard Lovelace, — 

"I could not love thee, Dear, so much, 
Loved I not honor more." 

Balzac says every calling has its point of honor. Dignity 
of command, Bacon declares, is always proportionable to 
the dignity of the commanded. Some one speaks of the 
honor that surpasses the service. Says Whittier, — 

"When faith is lost, when honor dies, 
The man is dead." 

An two men ride of a horse, observes Shakspeare, one must 
ride behind. Walter Scott declares new honors to be as 
heady as new wine. Alexander would not steal a victory. 



HOSPITALITY 211 

The only use of honors, Huxley thinks, is as an antidote to 
fits of the "blue devils." 

HOPE 

IN prison, of all places, a man believes what he hopes, 
remarks Balzac. Dumas speaks of building castles 
on that moving sand we call the future. Which way I fly 
is hell; myself am hell, is from " Paradise Lost." Despair, 
says Beaconsfield, is the conclusion of fools. Bacon thinks 
all despair to be a kind of reproaching the deity. Ac- 
cording to Alexander Bain, the earliest and most constant 
sign of reason is working for a remote object. Haydon 
said in 1827, "There are three things in this world I 
hope to see before I die — the Americans whipped at 
sea, my own debts paid, and historical painting encour- 
aged by government." Work without hope draws nectar 
in a sieve, is a line from Coleridge. A hope is akin to a 
doubt, says Landor. This from Pope, — 

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast; 
Man never is, but always to be, blest." 

It is a remark of some one, that the youth of a nation are 
the trustees of posterity. Hope, says Sir Arthur Helps, 
can build, in reverse, a pyramid upon a point. No pos- 
session equals the dreams of it, the proverb says. The 
man who lives by hope, says the Italian proverb, will die 
by hunger. When a sickness is desperate, Addison de- 
clares, we often try remedies we have no faith in. 



HOSPITALITY 

OSPITALITY, according to Latrobe, is most con- 
spicuous among agriculturists far removed from 
a market; in fact, everywhere where food cannot be 
bought or sold. This from Shakspeare, — 



H 



212 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"Unbidden guests 
Are often welcomest when they are gone." 

Lowell says the Bostonians generally seem to have two 
notions of hospitality — a dinner with people you never 
saw before nor ever wish to see again, and a drive to 
Mount Auburn cemetery, where you will see what man 
can do in the way of disfiguring nature. William von 
Humboldt, when invited out to dine at six, always dined 
first at a restaurant at five, considering the invitation one 
for the purpose of intellectual and social diversion. It was 
Irish hospitality to lock up the guest's bridle. Welcome 
the coming, speed the parting guest, Pope's line, is taken 
from the "Odyssey." 

HUMILITY 

JESUS and Mahomet both submitted to menial offices. 
Timoleon accepted the leadership against the Cartha- 
ginians, after it had been refused by all the prominent 
Corinthians. Hesiod kept sheep upon the slopes of 
Helicon. George Ripley, at Brook Farm, took delight 
in so menial a task as blacking the boots of a fellow- 
member. R. L. Stevenson writes of himself, "Here lies 
one who meant well, tried a little, failed much." Bos- 
suet thinks Paul was the more powerful because he felt 
himself weak. When it was first suggested to General 
Jackson, that he might be elected President, he is reported 
to have said, "Do you suppose I am such a d — d fool 
as to think myself fit for President of the United States?" 
Humbleness does not win multitudes or the sex, is re- 
marked by George Meredith. If William Black is to be 
credited, Celsus, a Roman writer who wrote the first 
polemic against Christianity, made it one of his objec- 
tions, that Christ had worked with his own hands. The 
following is from Victor Hugo, — 



IDIOSYNCRASIES 213 

" — want is a low door, which, when we must 
By stern necessity pass through, doth force 
The greatest to bend down the most/* 



HYPERBOLE 

HAIR that was more than black. The tower of 
Babel was so high that some imagined that who- 
ever mounted to the top could hear the angels sing. 
The following is from Horace, — Fratresque tendentes 
opaco Pelion imposuisse Olympo. Wet even to the mar- 
row, is a familiar phrase. A noise that tore the sky, is 
Milton's. 

IDIOSYNCRASIES 

NOTHING more exposes us to madness, observes 
Goethe, than distinguishing ourselves from 
others. It is remarked by Creevey, that 
perhaps no man, prince or subject, ever left such a ward- 
robe behind him as our George IV. Rev. Mr. Frost, at 
one time an instructor in Harvard, would say in a Thanks- 
giving sermon, "We have been free from the pestilence 
that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth 
at noonday; it is true, we have had some chickenpox and 
some measles." "Give me a drachm of silver," said a 
cynic philosopher to Antigonus. "That is not a present 
befitting a king," replied he. "Give me then a talent," 
said the other. "That," said Antigonus, "is not a present 
befitting a cynic." Goethe never read his " Tasso " through 
after it was printed. Sterne, who was known to weep at 
the mere perusal of pathetic suffering, deserted his own 
wife and children. Sir Thomas More had his fool painted 
along with himself. In the time of Frederick the Great's 
father, it was dangerous for a man to be six feet tall. 



214 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Pepys mentions the circumstance of the Duke of York's 
being in mourning for his wife's grandmother, which he 
thought a great piece of fondness. Swift could not 
remember any weather that was not either too hot or too 
cold, too wet or too dry. One of Balzac's characters 
wrote an anonymous letter with her left hand. Hazlitt 
says Coleridge always talks to people about what they 
don't understand. We are told of a Scotchman who had 
only two names for twenty dogs. There are men who are 
willing to err with Plato, and there are those who are 
unwilling to go right with Epicurus, says Bacon. It was 
Timothy Dexter of Massachusetts who sent an invoice of 
warming pans to the West Indies. Vespasian thought it 
his duty, after the Roman fashion, to die standing. Ex- 
cessive patriotic pride is exemplified in the person of one 
Culrossie, who fought a duel for the honor of Aberdeen 
butter. A certain Englishman hanged himself, that he 
might no longer dress and undress himself. A certain 
gardener once wearily said, " Shall I always see these clouds 
moving from east to west?" Another one wished that 
the next returning spring might be red instead of green. 
Johnson's friend, Topham Beauclerk, was very absent- 
minded. One day he had a party coming to dinner, and 
just before their arrival he went up-stairs to dress. For 
the moment thinking it was bedtime, he forgot his visitors, 
took off his clothes, got into bed, and went to sleep. The 
great captain Zisca wished a drum to be made of his 
skin after he was dead, because he thought the very 
noise of it would put his enemies to flight. James II sat 
for his portrait to a flower painter. According to Jeremy 
Taylor, St. John recreated himself by sporting with a 
tame partridge. Caligula cared more for his horse than 
for all the world besides; he even wanted to make him a 
consul. It has been reported that Victor Hugo always 



IDIOSYNCRASIES 215 

wrote standing. How fond Henry James is of the word 
"obsession." Cardinal Mazarin never thought anything 
of Cardinal de Retz after learning that he had written 
for the last thirty years with the same pen. The soprano 
Catalini had an ignorant husband who, when told that 
the piano was too high, called in a carpenter and had the 
legs cut off. Madame di Murska, the prima donna, 
always refused to be interviewed. Aristotle was some- 
thing of a dandy; his hair had a jaunty cut, and he wore 
numerous rings on his fingers. George III could name 
every ship in his navy. Baxter made it a rule in every 
sermon to say something that was above the capacity of 
his audience. Handel ate enormously; at a tavern he 
always ordered dinner for three. Lady Morgan's Irish 
hero entered a drawing-room by throwing a back somer- 
sault in at the door. The Brook Farm reformers tried 
to raise a calf on hay tea instead of milk, but with results 
fatal to the calf. An Irish tutor called his twins "Gem" 
and "Mini." Richardson felt unequal to the composi- 
tion of a letter to a certain fine lady unless he sat down in 
full dress. When Evarts entered the Senate, Hoar re- 
marked to him, "We shall now have to amend the rules 
so that a motion to adjourn will be in order in the middle 
of a sentence." At Brook Farm, instead of, "Will you 
pass the butter?" the over-refined request was, "Is the 
butter within the sphere of your influence?" Don 
Quixote was four days considering what name to give his 
horse; he thought it the very essence of adventure to 
allow his horse to go which way he pleased. Bayle was 
thrown into convulsions by the sound of falling water; 
Scaliger turned pale at the sight of a cress; Erasmus took 
a fever from the smell of fish; the Due d'Epernon fainted 
at the sight of a hare; Tycho Brahe at the sight of a fox, 
and Henry III at the sight of a cat; Marie de' Medici, 



216 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the Chevalier de Guise, and many other historic person- 
ages, were made ill by roses, even painted ones — these 
facts according to Balzac. A Tyrant of olden time, who 
feared assassination, had twelve bed chambers, that it 
might not be known with certainty where he slept on any 
given night. Augustus Caesar used to read or write while 
being shaved. Queen Victoria said Gladstone always 
addressed her as if she were a public meeting. Where 
the whole population is hunch-backed, says Balzac, a 
straight shape is a monstrosity. Deacon Hosper claimed 
that he never swore except when it was necessary. Huxley, 
like James I, was a great punster. According to Sterne, 
the ideas of an author are different after he has shaved 
from what they were before. Michelangelo went on 
modeling and hewing through the sack of Rome, the fall 
of Florence, and the decline of Italian freedom. Alex- 
ander Cruden spent his leisure moments going about 
London erasing with a sponge chalk marks on the walls. 
Hawthorne always washed his hands before reading a 
letter from Sophia Peabody, his future wife. Hume never 
broke his resolution, formed early in life, of never replying 
to attacks upon his literary works. Swift, who died at 
seventy-eight, in accordance with a vow never would 
wear spectacles. Halifax, the prime minister of William 
III, was from the very quickness of his intellect slow in 
deciding practical matters; he was too much inclined to 
argue both sides. Lord Byron kept a horse at Venice. 
Rousseau had a poor memory; when alone he always 
dined with a book as company. Dr. Johnson could write 
without difficulty in a noisy crowded room; he seldom 
corrected anything he had written. Napoleon loved old 
clothes and old hats. Landor was an excellent Latin 
scholar, but was a poor mathematician; nor could he 
learn to dance; at college he refused to compete for 



IDIOSYNCRASIES 217 

prizes in literary composition; he cared but little for a 
library, but gave away his books after reading them. 
Socrates never left the city walls of Athens except on 
military service. Carlyle's father was never outside a 
circle having a diameter of fifty miles. Blessed is the man 
that hath a hobby, said Lord Brougham. It is related of 
Pyrrho the Sceptic, that when out walking he never turned 
aside to avoid any obstacle or danger, and that he was 
only saved from destruction by the vigilance of his friends. 
It is difficult, Balzac thinks, for any man to live without 
a hobby. John Stuart Mill does not mention his mother 
in his autobiography. Dr. Johnson never wished to have 
children. Jonathan Edwards was absent-minded; when 
out riding he asked the lad, who had politely opened the 
gate for him, whose boy he was; the boy told him; Ed- 
wards returning soon, asked the same lad, who repeated 
the service, the same question as before; "Why, sir," he 
answered, "I am the same man's boy I was fifteen minutes 
ago." Dean Swift could never be prevailed upon to 
preach before Queen Anne. Napoleon slept after the 
battle of Waterloo. Morosini carried his favorite cat on 
his campaigns. When reading, Montaigne was accus- 
tomed to underline striking passages. The younger Pitt 
once drank a toast out of the shoe of a famous Devonshire 
beauty. Fox said it was lucky Burke took the royal 
side in the French Revolution, for his violence would 
certainly have got him hanged if he had happened to take 
the other side. Sheridan, in order to be near Miss Linley, 
is said on several occasions to have disguised himself as a 
hackney coachman and to have driven her home from her 
performances. Swift remarks upon a certain vicar, that 
he was such a stickler for etiquette that he would go 
but once to the sick, except they returned the visit. A 
certain devotee of literature, when giving a dinner to 



218 LITERARY BREVITIES 

authors, placed his guests according to the size and thick- 
ness of the books they had published. Begin at the end, 
is the advice of Balzac. Gladstone chewed his food 
thirty-two times. Cardinal Richelieu, for recreation, 
used to jump in competition with his servant, each trying 
to reach the higher point on a wall. Paley, the great 
writer on natural theology, had himself painted with a 
fishing-rod in his hand. It made Schiller dizzy to see 
Madame De Stael twirl a fragment of paper between her 
fingers. Swift remarks, "I asked a gentleman the other 
day how he liked such a lady; he would not give 
me his opinion till I had answered him whether she were 
a Whig or a Tory." Every man, observes Bulwer, has his 
hobby; sometimes he breaks in the hobby, and some- 
times the hobby breaks him in. Socrates swore by his 
dog, as also did Zeno; Pythagoras swore by air and water; 
King John of England by God's teeth. During a long 
attendance in the family of a particular friend, Dr. John 
Radcliffe regularly refused the fee pressed upon him at each 
visit; but in the end when offered the whole amount, he 
took it, saying, "Singly I could have refused them for- 
ever; but being all offered at once they are irresistible." 
Sheridan's disregard of money was shown in his stuffing 
bank-notes around the window sash to prevent its rattling. 
Neander was so absent-minded that he was known to 
enter the lecture-room in his drawers alone. Carlyle 
tells us that Heine, like our Bancroft, delighted in roses; 
and that he had a habit (which ought to be general) of 
yawning when people spoke to him and said nothing. 
Jefferson was addicted to "drawing the long bow" in 
telling a story. The Adamses, asserts Lowell, have a 
genius for saying even a gracious thing in an ungracious 
way. Goethe's mother left orders, that at the time of 
her funeral there should not be too few raisins in the cake 



IDIOSYNCRASIES 219 

for the funeral feast. Madame de Sevigne said, "I 
should be very happy in these woods, if I only had a leaf 
that sings." Late in life Dr. John Brown, whose patients 
were mostly personal friends, found it difficult to dis- 
tinguish between his professional and his personal calls. 
It came to be understood, that when he left his hat in the 
hall, the call was professional; when he kept it in his hand, 
it was a personal call. The records of the Hasty Pudding 
Club at Cambridge were kept in verse. At one time James 
Russell Lowell was secretary of this club. Herodotus 
gave to each of his books the name of a Muse. It is the 
remark of some one, that he never knew any good come 
to a man "who stroked his mustache with his little finger 
standing out like that from his hand." Southey, when 
too feeble to read his books, used to kiss them. Andrew 
Jackson was fond of cock-fighting. Dean Swift once 
kept a letter unopened several days, because he was afraid 
it contained news of a friend's death. Leigh Hunt tells 
of a man who took two Sundays in a single week instead 
of one in each of two weeks. Petrarch, so Balzac affirms, 
never appeared in the presence of Laura but in white 
from head to foot. President William Henry Harrison 
was much given to quoting the classics. In a fit of 
severe reformation, Rousseau decided to give up the ob- 
servance of the common amenities, such as politeness and 
all superfluities of dress; he sold his watch, saying, "I 
shall henceforth never need to know the time of day." 
Rousseau, being a good penman, earned his livelihood by 
copying music. In mentioning the abdication of Charles 
V of Spain, James Howell says, "This does not suit with 
the genius of an Englishman, who loves not to pull off his 
clothes till he goes to bed." According to Benson, Gray 
refused to accept money for his publications, and gave it 
to be understood that he was an eccentric gentleman who 



220 LITERARY BREVITIES 

wrote solely for his own amusement. Dean Stanley, 
when once preaching to students, was disturbed by the 
half-suppressed laughter of his hearers. After the service 
he became aware that he had performed the functions of 
the pulpit with his gloves resting on the top of his head; 
they had accidentally been left in his hat, and when that 
had been removed from his head, the gloves had remained, 
he being quite unconscious of the fact. Madame Geoffrin, 
a woman of great liberality, was offended if thanked. 
Edward Everett was so punctilious in point of manners, 
that he used to retire to his chamber to wipe his nose. An 
English ordinary mentioned by Fielding objected to wine, 
but drank punch because it is nowhere spoken against in 
Scripture. Byron wished he could know the feeling of a 
murderer. Alcibiades cut off his dog's tail to make people 
talk. Bonaparte, so we are informed, was never more than 
ten minutes at dinner. La Fontaine went to sleep at the 
performance of his own opera. Haydon wished he could 
exist without sleep. Swift used to keep his birthday a 
day of mourning. Racine's wife was ignorant of his 
plays. They who are all spirit, says Balzac, do not weep. 
T. W. Higginson states, that General Taylor never wore 
a uniform, and habitually sat upon his horse with both 
feet hanging on the same side. In the journal of Haydon's 
father the most trivial notes concluded with the state of 
the wind. There are some fishermen, remarks Bliss 
Perry, who always fish as if they were being photographed. 
It is stated by Voltaire, that few Muscovites would ven- 
ture to eat a pigeon, because the Holy Ghost is painted in 
the form of a dove. The actor Cooper had a strange 
propensity for betting. Once, seeing on Broadway a 
cart loaded with hay, he made a bet with another actor, 
staking the possible proceeds of his benefit performance, 
that he would draw a longer wisp from the load of hay than 



IDIOSYNCRASIES 221 

his companion would; he lost the bet and $1,200. Scott 
relates, that a certain king of Castile choked of thirst 
because his butler was not beside him to hand his cup. 
Coleridge, at the close of a lecture, is said to have given 
thanks to God that He had defended him from being able 
to utter a single sentence in the French language. Diderot 
never dated his letters. Savonarola was so impressed 
by one word in a sermon to which he listened, that he 
never forgot it; he would not reveal what the word was, 
and claimed that it made him a monk. We are told 
of a Persian dervish who for thirty years had kept a 
vow never to employ his organs of speech otherwise than 
in uttering "Allah." Goethe thinks certain defects are 
necessary for the existence of individuality; that we should 
not be pleased if old friends were to lay aside certain pe- 
culiarities. At the time of his death Frederick the Great 
owned one hundred and thirty snuff-boxes, the most 
valuable being worth £1,500. At the battle of Fontenoy, 
when the tide at last turned in favor of the French, 
King Louis XV rode up and kissed Marechal Saxe; so 
Custer kissed Sheridan at the battle of Cedar Creek. 
Wallenstein could not endure the least noise near his 
sleeping-room. At Prague he had more than one hundred 
houses near his palace torn down, and sentries posted 
all around. Frederick the Great, as a sop to his father, 
also for a while chose tall soldiers. Landor, once in a 
towering passion, threw his cook out of the window, and 
then exclaimed, as he saw his victim strike the ground, 
"Good God! I never thought of those poor violets." 
A story is related of a greedy English clergyman, who, 
when asked to say grace, looked around anxiously to see 
if there were champagne glasses on the table, and if there 
were, began, "Bountiful Jehovah"; but if he saw only 
claret glasses, he said, "We are not worthy of the least 



222 LITERARY BREVITIES 

of Thy mercies." In the time of George II, Lord Ferress 
was executed for murder, being hanged with a silken 
cord. Queen Elizabeth, according to report, had at one 
time 4,000 gowns. Frederick I obliged the apple-women 
to knit as they sat at their stalls. Goethe was annoyed 
at the sight of spectacles on anyone. Schiller kept a 
drawer full of rotten apples, the scent of which he found so 
beneficial that he could not live or work without it; 
Goethe chanced once to be near the drawer, and almost 
fainted from the effects of the dreadful odor. Ecker- 
mann pronounces Goethe's feeling for the Theory of Colors 
to be like that of a mother who loves a favorite child 
all the more, the less it is esteemed by others. It was 
Philoxenus who wished to possess the neck of the crane, 
so as to be longer in tasting the pleasures of the table. 
Voltaire is said to have one hundred and eighty pseudo- 
nyms. Emerson was not one of those writers who get up 
in the night to jot down a choice thought. I could digest 
a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as in a garden, 
declares Sir Thomas Browne. The unhappy queen of 
Henry II used to sign herself, "Eleanora by the wrath of 
God queen of England." According to Victor Hugo, the 
Duke of Alva would warm his hands at the stake. Rose- 
bery states that Napoleon, to make himself agreeable to 
Gourgaud, would pinch the latter's ear, the well-known 
sign of his affection and good humor. An Englishman, 
noted for his oddities, especially for his strict adherence 
to truth, would rather be thought a malcontent than 
drink the king's health when he was not dry, as related by 
Addison. At Brook Farm, it was the proper thing to 
propose that the pie should be cut from the center to 
the periphery. We are told of a man who, while in the 
tower awaiting execution, used each morning to lie down 
on the block by way of practising. 



IGNORANCE 223 

IDLENESS 

AND lack of load made his life burdensome, is a line 
from Milton. In idle hours the evil mind is busy, 
Schiller writes. It is a saying of Theocritus, that every 
day is a holiday to people who have nothing to do. We 
would all be idle if we could, says Dr. Johnson. Brown- 
ing has the expression, "busy idleness." Henry James 
states that W. W. Story, while in college, was inclined to 
let himself go in almost any direction but that of effort. 
Chadwick informs us, that Theodore Parker's hardest 
work did not wear upon him so much as compulsory 
idleness. Euripides calls leisure "that seductive evil." 
There is nothing more wretched, observes Goethe, than a 
man in comfortable circumstances without work. Wil- 
liam Black thinks men cannot be idle with safety either 
to themselves or to the community. It is the estimate 
of Samuel Smiles, that nine-tenths of the vices and miseries 
of the world proceed from idleness. Lady Montagu 
pronounced idleness to be the root of all evil. 

IGNORANCE 

IGNORANCE is the curse of God, knowledge the wing 
wherewith we fly to heaven, says Shakspeare. Brown- 
ing says ignorance is not innocence but sin. Dr. Johnson 
speaks of one Taylor as an instance of how far impu- 
dence can carry ignorance. The savages sowed gun- 
powder, expecting to raise a crop. Bunyan writes, 
"Thou talkest like one upon whose head is the shell to 
this very day." Balzac compares some one to a Mohican 
at the opera. The same declares ignorance to be the sole 
support of despotism, as it is easier to govern a nation of 
idiots than a nation of scholars. De Morgan says, "a 



224 LITERARY BREVITIES 

complication" is the refuge of destitute diagnosis. A 
very attentive woman at Huxley's lecture on the brain, 
seeming to be the only one of his audience able to follow 
his argument, after the lecture came forward and asked 
Huxley if she understood him to say the cerebellum was 
on the inside of the skull or on the outside. There is 
nothing, affirms Lady Montagu, can pay one for that 
invaluable ignorance which is the companion of youth, 
those groundless hopes, and that lively vanity, which 
make all the happiness of life. 

IMITATION 

THE footmen in attendance at the Houses of Parlia- 
ment, in the time of Swift, used to form themselves 
into a deliberative body, and usually debated the same 
points as their masters. The surest way to be artificial, 
declares Henry van Dyke, is to try to be natural according 
to some other man's recipe. Landor thinks prayers and 
gaping are contagious. 

INGRATITUDE 

AT the battle of Ramillies, Overkirk, of the allied 
army under Marlborough, took prisoner a Bavarian 
officer, but gallantly returned him his sword, saying, 
"You are a gentleman, keep it"; the base wretch upon 
receiving his weapon immediately attempted to run Over- 
kirk through, when he was struck down by an orderly. 
Seneca thinks we are a great deal apter to remember 
injuries than benefits. Kellermann saved France and the 
First Consul at Marengo by a brilliant charge; the ranks 
applauded under fire and in the thick of the carnage; 
yet the heroic charge was not even mentioned in the 
bulletin, we are told by Balzac. 



M 



INSULTS 225 

INNOCENCE 

ENCIUS asserts, that the great man is he who does 
not lose his child heart. This from Shakspeare, — 

"By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out 
The purity of his." 



The same again, — 

"Whose nature is so far from doing harms, 
That he suspects none. ,, 

H. W. Dresser thinks the credulity of human nature one 
of its profoundest weaknesses. There are very few, Addi- 
son remarks, who know how to be idle and innocent. 

INSULTS 

THOUGH the average man would not feel insulted if 
you were to say to him, "You are no saint," it 
would not be safe to say, "You are no gentleman. " The 
English solicitor-general, David Wedderspoon, in an in- 
vective against Franklin, whom he accused of tampering 
with private correspondence in order to have Thomas 
Hutchinson dismissed from the governorship of Massa- 
chusetts, called him a "man of three letters," after the 
manner of Plautus, "f-u-r," the Latin word for thief. 
Henry James speaks of "the perpetual luxury of a griev- 
ance." It needs no great experience of affairs, Rosebery 
observes, to know, that when menace has been attempted 
and has failed, expostulation is only an opportunity for 
insult. This from Racine, — 

"The dearer he 
Who does the offense, the more the ill is felt." 



226 LITERARY BREVITIES 

INTELLECT 

IT is very hard, observes Addison, for the mind to dis- 
engage itself from a subject in which it has been long 
employed; the thoughts will be rising of themselves from 
time to time, though we give them no encouragement; 
as the tossings and fluctuations of the sea continue several 
hours after the winds are laid. It is hard for an empty 
sack to stand upright, says an old proverb. Mediocrity 
is never discussed, Balzac asserts. McCarthy says Burke 
saw everything, that Palmerston foresaw everything. Car- 
lyle declares, that for Voltaire the first question was, not 
what is true, but what is false. George Eliot affected but 
little critical knowledge of works of art; her husband says 
she had an enormous faculty for taking pains; as a child 
she was not precocious. Carlyle asserts, that there is 
not one great thought in all Voltaire's six-and-thirty 
quartos. If thinking were not so hard, remarks a brain- 
tired man. 

A great man must have an intellect that puts into 
motion the intellects of others, some one has observed. 
Emerson became interested in an obscure countryman of 
marked originality, a sort of philosopher in the rough, 
to whom he lent a volume of Plato; when the old 
man returned the book, he remarked to Emerson, 
"There are some good things in that book; I find 
this Mr. Plato has a good many of my idees." Carlyle 
thought Alcott "the ninth part of a thinker." Balzac 
refers to one as having no dangerous amount of in- 
tellect. It was said of Fontenelle, that he had as 
good a heart as could be made out of brains. Coleridge 
describes a certain man as one pre-eminently a man 
of many thoughts with no ideas. Shakspeare has been 
called the Proteus of human intellect. George Sand 



INTELLECT 227 

alludes to a man who "hasn't two ideas a week." Some 
school boys, says Hazlitt, cannot read but in their own 
books; and the man of one idea cannot converse out of 
his own subject. A man is always pleased with himself, 
observes Dr. Johnson, when he finds his intellectual in- 
clinations predominant. Sterne would find a northeast 
passage to the intellectual world. A certain Ferdinand 
Cordoue, mentioned by Sterne, was so wise at nine 
"'twas thought the devil was in him." John Stuart Mill 
understood the integral calculus at the age of thirteen. 
Balzac allows the savage to have feelings only, while the 
civilized being has feelings and ideas. A profound thinker, 
says Beaconsfield, always suspects that he is superficial. 
Schiller is of the belief, that an honest man may be carved 
out of any willow stump, but to make a rogue you must 
have brains. Carlyle declares that Voltaire understood 
Newton when no other man in France understood him. 
John Fiske thinks one could no more expect a prime 
minister to understand Huxley's attitude in presence of a 
scientific problem, than a deaf-mute to comprehend a 
symphony of Beethoven. The same historian ranks 
Australian man the lowest of the human species. Sheri- 
dan was found very dull in society. Generals Grant, 
Sherman, and Sheridan were all considered mediocre 
when at West Point. The more intellect we have our- 
selves, declares Pascal, the more originality do we dis- 
cover in others. Ordinary people find no difference in 
men. 'Tis the mind that makes the body rich, says 
Shakspeare. Man is but a reed, weakest in nature, 
Pascal says, but a reed that thinks. The same would 
have the greatness of man to consist in thoughts. Milton, 
we are told, was conversant with six foreign languages; 
he could almost repeat Homer entire; he particularly 
admired Ovid and Euripides; in preferring "Paradise Re- 



228 LITERARY BREVITIES 

gained" to " Paradise Lost," he showed the mother's pre- 
dilection for her imbecile child. Landor's literary activity 
extended over a period of sixty-eight years. Plain living 
and high thinking are no more, is Wordsworth's. Balzac 
pronounces St. Peter the man of the people among the 
Apostles, the roughest among them, and likewise the 
shrewdest. Thought, according to Richard Burton, is 
essentially aristocratic; emotion is democratic the world 
over. It was said of the second Pitt, that he never grew, 
he was cast. Pascal declares that all bodies, the firma- 
ment, the stars, the earth and its kingdoms, are not equal 
in value to the lowest human mind; for that knows all 
things and itself too. Advice appeals to the intellect, 
and experience to the emotions, is the dictum of Arlo 
Bates. Joubert finds it insupportable to converse with 
men who have in their brains only compartments which 
are wholly occupied, and into which nothing external can 
enter. Arlo Bates thinks the most common intellectual 
difficulty is not that of the lack of ideas, but that of vague- 
ness of ideas. William M. Evarts thinks the legal pro- 
fession one that sharpens and does not enlarge the mind. 
There is, it must be confessed, William James remarks, 
a curious fascination in hearing deep things talked about, 
even though neither we nor the disputants understand 
them. To comprehend is to equal, says Balzac. Inter- 
est, it has been observed, is the soul of the will, and the 
undying ambition of many a statesman has kept his 
brain as strong after three score and ten as it was ever 
before. Aristotle thought the function of the brain had 
nothing to do with the mind; this position was over- 
thrown by Galen about 160 a.d. James Howell said his 
mind was like a stone thrown into deep water, which 
never rests till it goes to the bottom. The highest intel- 
lects, observes Macaulay, like the tops of mountains, are 



INTELLECT 229 

the first to catch and reflect the dawn. S. M. Crothers 
defines a doctrinaire as one who theorizes without suf- 
ficient regard for practical considerations. During all 
Scott's life the half hour between waking and rising proved 
propitious to any task which was exercising his invention. 
Emerson asserts, that England has yielded more able men 
in five hundred years than any other nation. Stedman 
thinks the critical and the creative natures are rarely 
united in one person. Says Cowper, "When I can find 
no other occupation I think." There is no worse lie, 
asserts William James, than a truth misunderstood by 
those who hear it. George Meredith says men may be 
accurate observers without being good judges. Carlyle 
speaks of reading letters with more than the eyes. It is 
only when an idea has become a matter of course to the 
thinker, Chesterton observes, that it becomes startling to 
the world. The following is from Pascal, — " Set the great- 
est philosopher in the world on a plank really wider than 
he needs, but over a precipice, and though reason con- 
vince him of his security, imagination will prevail." 
Lamb considers Fletcher and Massinger the only poets 
of their age who are entitled to be considered after Shak- 
speare. Thucydides and Bolingbroke both complained 
of the indiscriminating tenacity of their memories. 
Marked gifts, says Sara Coleridge, are often attended by 
marked deficiencies even in the intellect. 



230 LITERARY BREVITIES 



JEALOUSY 

NOTHING, says Bulwer, kindles the fires of love 
like a sprinkling of the anxieties of jealousy. 
Heine confessed, that he was jealous of Goethe. 
Shakspeare has the following, — 

"Trifles, light as air, 
Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong 
As proofs of holy writ." 

The same again, — 

"So full of artless jealousy is guilt, 
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt." 

A tiger is as jealous as a Dalmatian, says Balzac. When 
Dr. Johnson heard that Sheridan had been pensioned, he 
said in his fierce manner, "What! have they given him a 
pension? Then it is time for me to give up mine." 
Blanche Howard remarks, that there are people in whose 
presence one can praise only the Emperor of China. The 
worst kind of jealousy, according to Dumas, is jealousy 
without love. 

JESTS 

AS a necessary safeguard to society, every inveterate 
story-teller should constitute his friends and asso- 
ciates a committee to decide when he is to retire certain 
threadbare jokes. If one carries a joke too far it becomes 
earnest, remarks Lessing. Dean Swift and three other 
clergymen once played a practical joke on a coachman, 
by furtively going around the coach, re-entering the other 
side, and coming out again, until those emerging reached 
the number of nine. When a certain wag had invited to 
a feast guests who were all stammerers, they being un- 
aware of the trick, and had placed a reporter behind a 



JUDGMENT 231 

screen to take down the conversation, the task did not 
require a knowledge of shorthand, as not twenty words 
were spoken during the first course, from The Spectator. 

JOY 

IT has been observed by some one, that a man who 
shakes his sides with mirth is seldom difficult to deal 
with. We are told of people who confirm their own 
judgment by clapping of hands. Life is at the bottom so 
awfully serious, observes Heine, that none of us could 
endure it without this blending of pathos and comedy. 
You do not laugh when you look at mountains, nor when 
you look at the sea, says Lafcadio Hearn. Tolstoy 
thinks all work makes one cheerful. The best part of a 
journey, some one has remarked, is the getting home from 
it. Scott says all merry fellows like moonlight. 

JUDGMENT 

'f I ^IS an old proverb, that bids us not to be doing what 
A is done already. A certain man portioned out his 
capital at so much a day, calculating to live just long 
enough to make it last. Unfortunately he lived too long. 
Austin Dobson, alluding to Steele, says his sanguine Irish 
nature led him continually to mistake his expectations 
for his income. Mirabeau is reputed to have possessed 
the remarkable gift of discovering obscure men of talent. 
Napoleon's regard for details was illustrated in his advice 
to the matron of a home for invalid soldiers, that the 
shirts returned from the wash should be placed at the 
bottom of the drawer, so that the same garments should 
not be worn and washed continually. Some one speaks 
of people who are all steeped in the deep slumber of de- 



232 LITERARY BREVITIES 

cided opinions. Just before the fall of Vicksburg Lincoln 
was half decided to supersede Grant by Banks. The very 
skill and swiftness of him who runs not in the right direc- 
tion must increase his aberration, asserts Bacon. We are 
warned by some one, that in moments of great peril, to 
try to save everything is the sure way to lose everything. 
According to William Matthews, the natural order is to 
try a man by his works, and not the works by the man. 

JUSTICE 

THE truly valiant, says Sir Philip Sidney, dare 
everything but to do others an injury. Cicero 
affirms, that nothing can be generous that is not at the 
same time just. God, says Matthew Arnold, is an eternal 
Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness. After 
the battle of the Boyne was over, one of William's soldiers 
butchered three defenseless Irishmen who asked for 
quarter. William ordered the murderer to be hanged on 
the spot. Force and right, declares Matthew Arnold, are 
the governors of the world; force till right is ready. One 
should not be both plaintiff and judge. Thrice is he 
armed who hath his quarrel just, is a line from Shakspeare. 
Untempered justice is oft injury, Racine says. It was a 
maxim of Bonaparte, that force is very well when one can 
use nothing else; but when one is master, justice is better. 
Carlyle thinks injustice pays itself with frightful com- 
pound interest. Horace mentions Julius Caesar but orice, 
Virgil but three times, each seeming to fear offending 
Augustus. 



w 



KNOWLEDGE 233 

KNOWLEDGE 

HO knows most doubts most, Browning asserts. 
Hazlitt calls knowledge pleasure as well as 
power. Emerson's lines are, — 

"Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, 
Nor time unmake what poets know." 



Some one wisely remarks, that knowledge should result 
in action. At a dinner in Washington, where President 
Buchanan was dining, a wager was made that no person 
present could tell all the names of the Muses; but one 
was found able to do it. Off his own beat Carlyle's 
opinions were of no value. No slave, it has been said, 
is clever enough to tie his own hands behind him. 
Goethe thinks self-knowledge comes from knowing other 
men. Hawthorne thinks the world is accumulating too 
many materials for knowledge; that we do not recognize 
for rubbish what is really rubbish. It is a glorious fever 
— that desire to know, suggests Bulwer. The same 
believes knowledge, in itself, is not friendly to content. 
There is nothing so little known, declares Balzac, as 
that which everybody is supposed to know — the law of 
the land, to wit. The frog in the well knows not the 
great sea, .Japanese saying. Lecky declares, that we 
owe more to our illusions than to our knowledge. Good 
morals and knowledge are almost always inseparable in 
every age, though not in every individual, Hume says. 
All the knowledge I possess, states Goethe, every one 
else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own. 
Better the devil we know than the devil we know not, 
old proverb. Carlyle speaks of one as a very dictionary 
of a man; who knows, in a manner, all things, and is 
by no means ignorant that he knows them. Leibnitz 



234 LITERARY BREVITIES 

mentions a woman who wants to know the why even of 
the why. 

LABOR 

LABOR is the seed of idleness, says Swift. Carlyle 
claims that there is endless hope in work. All 
men, remarks Thucydides, are energetic in mak- 
ing a beginning. Mankind, Fielding observes, are to be 
comprised under two grand divisions, — those who use their 
own hands and those who employ the hands of others. 
The negroes declare, that apes could speak if they would, 
but that they discreetly hold their tongues lest they be 
made to work. Do thine own work and know thyself, is 
Plato's injunction. It is an assertion of Seneca, that 
difficulties strengthen the mind as well as labors do the 
body. The same declares, that an honest man is out of 
his element when he is idle. The secret of life, observes 
Mrs. Browning, is in full occupation; this world is not 
tenable on other terms. That slept and did none other 
werke, is Chaucer's. The safe and general antidote 
against sorrow is employment, from the Rambler. Jeremy 
Taylor calls idleness the burial of a living man. Great 
rest standeth in little business, is Chaucer's. According 
to Sir Arthur Helps, hard work is a great police agent. 
Aristotle says the end of labor is to gain leisure. Happy 
is the wife of a busy man, remarks Balzac. To face un- 
interesting drudgery is, in the opinion of William James, 
a good part of life's work. Lord Chatham regards vacancy 
to be worse than the most anxious work. Augustus 
Caesar wondered that Alexander wanted more worlds 
to conquer, fearing he should lack work, seeing that it 
is as hard a matter to keep as to conquer. If you want 
anything done very poorly, get a boy to do it. Lincoln 
said his father taught him to work, but never taught him 



LAWYERS 235 

to love it. It has been suggested, that if you are turning 
a grindstone, every moment is precious; but if you are 
doing a man's work, the inspired moments are precious. 
Following is the way Coleridge has it, — 

"Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve; 
And hope without an object cannot live." 

As Ruskin would have it, life without industry is guilt, 
and industry without art is brutality. Virtue's sentinel 
is work, says Balzac. Emerson worked a little every day 
in his vegetable garden. 

LAUGHTER 

PESTALOZZI at first made an attempt to be a clergy- 
man; in his first sermon he was seized with a fit of 
uncontrollable laughter and broke down completely. 
Richardson depicts a character who excites a laugh by 
laughing himself at all he is going to say, as well as what 
he has just said. Seriousness, says Heine, shows itself 
more majestically when laughter leads the way. Dr. 
Johnson thinks every man may be judged by his laughter. 
In Carlyle's estimation, one great deficiency in Voltaire's 
nature was inborn levity; he thought him to be by birth 
a mocker. There is nothing more significant of men's 
characters, observes Goethe, than what they find 
laughable. Benson speaks of one who laughs as if he 
were amused, not like a man discharging a painful duty. 
Rabelais asserts, that laughter is the special gift of man. 

LAWYERS 

THE glory of a clever lawyer, Balzac declares, is to 
gain a rotten suit. It has been observed by G. S. 
Hillard, that Jeremiah Mason was a great lawyer, but that 



236 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Daniel Webster was a great man practising law. It is a 
remark of Landor, that where the lawyers flourish, there 
is a certain sign that the laws do not. 

LETTER-WRITING 

DR. JOHNSON regards the art of letter-writing as 
consisting solely in telling the news. Carlyle pre- 
served all the letters he ever received; his correspondents 
were no common men, and in writing to him they naturally 
wrote their best. I have ever thought, says Steele, that 
men were better known by what could be observed of 
them from a perusal of their private letters than any 
other way. Southey declares, that a man's character 
may be judged of even more surely by the letters which 
his friends address to him than by those he himself pens. 

LIBERTY 

BURKE observes, that it is sometimes as hard to 
persuade slaves to become freemen as it is to compel 
freemen to become slaves. Seneca thinks a well governed 
appetite a great part of liberty. "O politics! how much 
bamboozling is done in thy game," paraphrase of Madame 
Roland's famous remark about liberty. The Rochester 
orator said, with true American boastfulness, "No people 
ever lost their liberty who had a waterfall two hundred and 
fifty feet high." Cousin's definition of liberty is, the doing 
of what we have a right to do. It was Madame Roland, 
of the time of Louis XVI, who said, "Liberty, what crimes 
are committed in thy name." It is a saying of Heine, 
that the Englishman loves liberty like his lawful wife; 
the Frenchman like his mistress; the German loves her 
like his old grandmother. Creevey asserts, that in at- 



LIFE 237 

tending Courts or the homes of Princes you lose your 
liberty. David depicted Robespierre with two hands 
upon his breast, as though he had two hearts for liberty. 
It is a remark of Robespierre, that there is no more for- 
midable enemy to liberty than fanaticism. Every man 
is rich who has the free use of earth and air. The fol- 
lowing from Cowper, — 

ff He is the free man whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves besides." 

The defense of freedom, declares William Roscoe, has 
always been found to expand and strengthen the mind. 
Even liberty must have a master, asserts Schiller. 



T 



LIFE 

HE following is from Browning, — 

"Yes, everybody that leaves life sees all 
Softened and bettered: so with other sights: 
To me at least was never evening yet 
But seemed far beautifuller than day, 
For past is past." 

The Greek poet Alexis calls human life a mad pastime 
between two darknesses. One half of the world knoweth 
not how the other half liveth, is a saying of Rabelais. 
Relinquamus aliquid quo nos vixisse testemus, said by the 
younger Pliny. The adage gives long life to threatened 
men, says Browning. He who lives but to save his life is 
already dead, is from Goethe's "Egmont." The sea-gull 
is said to live longer than man. Hawthorne states, that 
there are three times in a man's life when he is talked 
about — when he is born, when he is married, and when 
he dies. Remarks Joubert, "Some say human life is a 
black cloth wherein are woven a few white threads; others 



238 LITERARY BREVITIES 

that it is a white cloth wherein are woven a few black 
threads." The greatest captains of antiquity, states 
Dumas, recreated themselves with casting pebbles into the 
ocean. Disce ut semper victurus, vive ut eras moriturus, 
John Fiske's motto. Plato died, while writing, in his 
eighty-first year. Regular habits, Balzac thinks, are the 
secret of long life and sound health. It is the observation 
of some one, that the clergy live by our sins, the medical 
faculty by our diseases, and the law gentry by our mis- 
fortunes. He who lives a long life must pass through 
many evils, remarks Cervantes. In giving life, says 
Victor Hugo, God contracts a debt. One sometimes 
thinks it regrettable, that in the primal ordering of things 
God hadn't made special provision whereby a few rare 
souls, touched to fine issues, might be allowed to live 
forever, remaining, physically and intellectually, with 
their sun at meridian. Addison wanted to pass his 
winter in Spain, his spring in Italy, and his autumn in 
France. There are few evils without a remedy, Le Sage 
thinks. Everyone grumbles at his own profession, ob- 
serves Scott. George Eliot says folks must put up with 
their own kin as they put up with their own noses; it's 
their own flesh and blood. Time hath power to soften 
all regrets, is Wordsworth's. This by P. J. Bailey, — 

"He most lives, 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 

It is a maxim of Goethe, that what can never be recalled 
should not be done in haste. An oak should not be trans- 
planted at fifty, says Grattan. Man is a buffoon, states 
Balzac, who dances on the edge of a precipice. It was 
Socrates who said concerning the commodiousness of tak- 
ing a wife, "Let a man take what course he will, he will 
be sure to repent." Dr. Johnson thought the man who 



LIFE 239 

was tired of London was tired of life. Nor is the wind 
less rough that blows a good man's barge, is Matthew 
Arnold's. Give me the luxuries of life, said Motley, and 
I will dispense with the necessaries. To tunes we did not 
call our being must keep chime, is Matthew Arnold's. 
One lives only once in this world, says Goethe. To keep 
wide awake is man's best dream, is Browning's. Locke 
thought the lasting pleasures of life to consist in health, 
reputation, knowledge, doing good, and the expectation 
of eternal happiness. The following from Goethe, — 

"Choose well; your choice is 
Brief and yet endless." 

It is Ernest Thompson Seton's belief, that no wild animal 
dies of old age; but that its life has soon or late a tragic 
end. Balzac says of some one, that he had made haste 
to enjoy life, and had paid dear for his enjoyments. It is 
not by living at Padua, observes George Eliot, that you 
can learn to know Florentines. The stork is an emblem 
of longevity. Diogenes, commenting on life, says, "There 
are two miseries in human life, to live without a friend and 
with a wife." Landor thinks he wrote "dog," not 
"friend." R. L. Stevenson defines life as a permanent 
possibility of sensation. There is no fooling with life, 
according to Abraham Cowley, when it is once turned 
beyond forty. It is the belief of John Fiske, that it is 
only through pain that higher and higher forms of life, 
whether individual or social, are evolved. Ut sementem 
feceris, ita metes, is Scripture Latinized. So much to do, 
so little done, complains Tennyson. Old age is a man who 
has dined and looks at others eat, is from Balzac. It is 
such a delight to live, observes Dumas, when one has just 
escaped death. Rousseau thinks the most perilous interval 
of human life is that between birth and the age of twelve. 



240 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Thoreau's food cost him only twenty-seven cents a week. 
Living means fighting, Roman proverb. Following is 
Shakspeare's, — 

"Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale 
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man." 

So is this, — 

"We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep.' * 

And this, — "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, 
good and ill together; our virtues would be proud, if our 
faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, 
if they were not cherished by our virtues." The moment 
of separation and the moment of meeting #,gain are the 
two most important epochs of life, from the Zendavesta. 
Dowden thinks the precept of true philosophy is, not 
Memento mori, but "Remember to live." The same 
author tells us, that life is short and death is always pres- 
ent behind the curtain. And again he remarks, that our 
whole life can be no more than an apprenticeship to the 
ideal. Balzac denies that everyday life can be cast in 
heroic mould. The following is Racine's, — 

"The gods command 
Our span of life, but in our own hand rests 
Our glory." 

This from George Eliot, — 

"Life is not rounded in an epigram, 
And, saying aught, we leave a world unsaid." 

Eight days of life, Saint-Evremond declares, are worth 
more than eight centuries of fame when dead. Life is a 
constant sharing of divine power, is the rather unique 
way H. W. Dresser expresses it. To love and to labor, 



LITERATURE 241 

Sir Thomas More pronounces the sum of living. Huxley's 
view is this, — -"Life is like walking along a crowded 
street — there always seem to be fewer obstacles to 
getting along on the opposite pavement, and yet, if one 
crosses over, matters are rarely mended." It has been 
claimed as one of the advantages of living to be very old, 
that one comes to see that things which had seemed to be 
disastrous were really blessings. No work must be 
expected to live long which draws all its beauty from the 
color of the times, is Addison's idea. Nee tecum possum 
vivere, nee sine te, is Martial's. From the same this, 
Vivere bis, vita fosse priore frui. 

LITERATURE 

IT is sometimes the case, that a mere fragment of an 
author's work is all that keeps his name alive; De Foe 
is chiefly known as the man who wrote" Robinson Crusoe," 
and of the numerous readers of the wonderful story but 
few know that he wrote anything else; in the same con- 
nection may be mentioned " Gray's Elegy," one of the best 
known poems in existence, and the only product of Gray's 
pen ever seriously thought of; of the works of that pro- 
lific writer, John Selden, the " Table Talk " alone makes its 
author live; even his "History of Tithes," which greatly 
incensed James I, and his " Mare Clausum " are known to 
only a few of the curious among readers. At the time of 
Selden's death it was said of him, "When a learned man 
dies a great deal of learning dies with him; but if learning 
could have kept a man alive, our brother had not died." 
Selden's amanuensis, Richard Milward, acting a Boswel- 
lian part, and having had ample opportunity to listen to 
his conversations, made a record of the good things that 
fell from Selden's lips and embodied them in " Table Talk," 



242 LITERARY BREVITIES 

perhaps the original of books so titled. Polonius illus- 
trates how Shakspeare gives to his plays an almost infinite 
variety of characters, the lesser ones, too, being almost as 
essential as the greater. Machiavelli's "Art of War" and 
"Marcus Aurelius" were the favorite books of Captain 
John Smith when a young man. Emerson and George Eliot 
both thought Rousseau's " Confessions " the most enter- 
taining book they had ever read. W. D. Howells, when 
at Rome, paid his respects to the Tarpeian Rock, not be- 
cause of its ancient renown, but because Donatello and 
Miriam had been associated with it in Hawthorne's 
"Marble Faun." One of the most remarkable things 
about Turner was his utter lack of literary faculty; 
Hamerton says Turner never did anything worse than his 
poetry except his prose. The poet Young never com- 
posed but at night, except rarely when he was on horse- 
back; hence the "Night Thoughts." Pope was the first 
Englishman who made an independent living from the sale 
of his literary productions. Charles Sumner read 
Hawthorne's chapter on Civic Banquets several times on 
account of the style. Byron's description of the Colos- 
seum by moonlight has been pronounced better than the 
reality. What a happy surprise it would be, if the sixty- 
three lost plays of iEschylus were to be found! It is, 
however, altogether likely that the few we have are his 
best. James Russell Lowell makes the surprising state- 
ment, that during the fifteenth century Europe did not 
produce a single book that is readable today. Bishop 
Pearson calls Virgil "that great master of the proprieties." 
The possessive of "it" does occur in the Bible, Leviticus 
xxv, 5. It is the opinion of G. W. Moon, that great 
writers may make or mar a language. The following 
fragment is from Browning, — r 



LITERATURE 243 

" — fast and thick 
As stars which storm the sky on autumn nights." 

The new version of the Scriptures is bad for the clergy, 
who lose many opportunities of telling "how it is in the 
original." The vilest of prose or poetry is called "balder- 
dash"; Balder, among the Scandinavians, was the pre- 
siding judge of poetry. According to Lowell, Milton is 
the only man who has succeeded in getting much poetry 
out of a cataract, and that was a cataract of the eye. 
There is a kind of consolation to be derived from litera- 
ture, in that it shows the foibles and weaknesses of the 
men and women around us to be the characteristics of 
human nature throughout all history. When we hear it 
suggested in the way of raillery, as a necessary safeguard 
to society, that some tiresome dispenser of stale anecdotes 
ought to constitute his friends a committee to decide when 
he is to retire certain threadbare jokes, we are disposed to 
feel kindlier towards the offender to have the assurance 
that Cicero was much given to repeating his favorite 
stories; that egotism is not a recently evolved trait of hu- 
man nature, is made manifest in the same great orator. 
Wordsworth's self-conceit was quite equal to the most pro- 
nounced examples of antiquity; when asked to read aloud 
a chapter in one of Scott's novels, noticing that the chapter 
was introduced by a quotation from one of his own poems, 
he quite forgot the story, and instead of reading the chap- 
ter recited his poem in full. The following beautiful piece 
of description is from one of Shakspeare's sonnets, — 

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, 
Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy." 

Richardson, author of "Clarissa," wrote No. 99 of the 
Rambler , and it was the only number that was at once 



244 LITERARY BREVITIES 

popular. We can say nothing, declares Robert Burton, 
but what hath been said; the composition and method 
are ours only, and show the scholar. It heightens the 
pleasure of reading Browning to know that but few can 
read him. General John A. Dix is a good example of an 
American public man who was thoroughly literary. A 
great book greatens with time, says G. E. Woodberry. 
How true what R. L. Stevenson says, that we cannot all 
take pleasure in " Paradise Lost." The " Pentameron," one 
of Walter Savage Landor's prose volumes, is, like his " Per- 
icles and Aspasia," of supreme literary excellence; every- 
one who enjoys the best should read it. Goldsmith wrote 
exquisitely in three distinct departments of literature — 
in descriptive poetry "The Deserted Village," in comedy 
" She Stoops to Conquer," and in prose fiction " The Vicar 
of Wakefield." It is claimed by some, that the actor in 
great measure makes Shakspeare; if this is so, why does not 
Booth make " Richelieu " as great a play as "Hamlet"? 
Webster's speeches are great as classic literature, though 
they lack the inspiring elocution of their author. In the 
judgment of Matthew Arnold, the best model of the grand 
style simple is Homer; perhaps the best model of the 
grand style severe is Milton; but Dante is remarkable 
for affording admirable examples of both styles. It is 
estimated, that thirty thousand people visit the grave of 
Burns every year. This is not wholly due to the fact that 
"Sweet Afton," "John Anderson my Jo," and the "Cot- 
ter's Saturday Night" are memorized the world over; Burns 
touches not only the Scotch heart, but all hearts, however 
humble, as no other poet has touched to responsiveness 
the hearts of people. Andrew Lang, in his "Letters to 
Dead Authors," writes of Burns, " We have had many a 
rural bard since Theocritus watched the visionary flocks, 
but you are the only one of them all who has spoken the 



LITERATURE 245 

sincere Doric." Burns's songs, like the odes of Horace, 
may be said to sound like "linnets in the pauses of the 
wind." Carlyle thought "Tristram Shandy" one of the 
first books after "Robinson Crusoe." It was a fancy of 
John Stuart Mill, that when the greater evils of life shall 
have been removed, the human race is to find its chief 
enjoyment in reading Wordsworth's poetry. A man may 
play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry, says 
Montaigne. A translation no more reveals what there 
is in an exquisite classic, than words can tell what the 
mind sees in a perfect piece of statuary or in an excellent 
painting. Pope is said to have sent nothing to the press 
till it had lain two years under his inspection. It is 
allowed that Homer strikes the imagination with what 
is great; Virgil with what is beautiful; Ovid with what is 
strange. Addison wrote a book entitled "An Account 
of the Greatest English Poets," in which he made no men- 
tion of Shakspeare. Says Longfellow, "When I quote 
Latin I quote Horace." Lope de Vega wrote five novels, 
each with one of the five vowels excluded from it. Books 
form a universal republic, declares Richter. Bryant, in 
his writings, generally abstained from using foreign words 
and phrases. Shelley read the Bible through four times 
before he was twenty-one years old. It is a dictum of 
Froude, that literature happens to be the only occupation 
in which wages are not given in proportion to goodness of 
the work done. This from Browning, — 

" Fleet the years, 
And still the Poet's page holds Helena 
At gaze from topmost Troy." 

At the Saturday Club Agassiz confessed that he had read 
but one of Scqtt's novels, " Ivanhoe "; "But," said he, "if 
God please, before my death I will read two more." 
Hawthorne says of Miriam, possibly the greatest character 



246 LITERARY BREVITIES 

he ever drew, "By some subtle quality she kept people at 
a distance, without so much as letting them know that 
they were excluded from her inner circle." The only 
impeccable writers, Hazlitt asserts, are those who do not 
write. Macaulay once bored Carlyle with the presentation 
of proofs that Sir Philip Francis wrote "The Letters of 
Junius." When thinking of the poet Gray, we are apt to 
think of his Elegy only, just as in thinking of Bunyan we 
think of his "Pilgrim's Progress" only, though each wrote 
other things of value. Of the Faun of Praxiteles, which 
inspired Hawthorne's tale, he writes, "Only a sculptor of 
the finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the sweetest 
feeling, and the rarest artistic skill — in a word, a sculptor 
and a poet, too — could have first dreamed of a Faun in 
this guise, and then have succeeded in imprisoning the 
sportive and frisky thing in marble; neither man nor 
animal, and yet no monster, but a being in whom both 
races meet on friendly grounds! The idea grows coarse 
as we handle it, and hardens in our grasp." In Miss 
Repplier's "Dozy Hours" are the following gems of 
thought: "It is a painful thing, at best, to live up to one's 
bric-a-brac"; " The necessity of knowing a little about a 
great many things is the most grievous burden of our day"; 
" It is never worth while to assert, that genius repeals the 
decalogue." It is an observation of Macaulay, as of many 
others, that great original literary works are most fre- 
quently produced in a rude state of society. Lowell kept 
Howells's first poem a long time before publishing it, to 
make sure it was not a translation. Montaigne might 
well say he could write upon any subject; for whatever 
the one chosen might be, he was always wandering from it. 
Some literary expressions, says Joubert, are like colors; 
often time must fade them before they can give general 
pleasure. Richard Burton states, that the Greeks of the 



LITERATURE 247 

classical period were eager listeners and talkers; that they 
were not great students of books. According to the belief 
of Madame de Sevigne, those who are happy enough to 
have a taste for reading never need be at a loss for amuse- 
ment. How fortunate, that a man's writings are often 
better than the man himself. Alexander Hamilton wrote 
his contributions to The Federalist on board a packet 
plying between New York and Albany. Among the 
Greeks, the competitors for prizes in poetic composition 
were limited to twelve; and to win the third prize, which 
must have been a kind of "booby," was considered a 
disgrace, a position to which Sophocles never fell. The 
judges in such contests were chosen by lot from the 
audience. Thackeray was often surprised by the sayings 
and doings of his creations. Some books, Macaulay 
remarks, which I never should dream of opening at dinner, 
please me at breakfast, and vice versa. It is observed by 
C. F. Richardson, that most books float a short time and 
then become water-logged; then sink with all their crew. 
Whistled as he signed for want of thought, is the way Le 
Sage antedates Dryden. Bayle, called the Shakspeare 
of Dictionary Makers, worked fourteen hours a day for 
forty years. His dictionary was generally found open 
on Addison's table. Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt, 
is St. Augustine's. Lewes believes, that no man ever 
repeated himself less than Goethe. Who can tell in words 
what a rose is? The "Witches' Prayer" was verse, read 
either way; but it cursed one way and blessed the other. 
The Old Testament Prophets were poets; Jesus spoke 
prose. Smollett's Commodore Trunnion, in his last 
moments of subconscious dozing, mutters a hope that, 
"when the angel comes to pipe all hands," he "will be able 
to surmount the puttock — shrouds of despair, and get 
aloft to the cross-trees of God's good favor." He whistled 



248 LITERARY BREVITIES 

as he went for want of thought, is Dryden's application of 
Le Sage. Pope received £1,200 for his translation of the 
"Iliad," and £600 for the "Odyssey." If Hawthorne's 
writings were to appear in a periodical for the first time 
today, but few would be attracted by them. Socrates 
thinks the worst of authors will say something to the point. 
Probably no writer is more absolutely identified with her 
nom de plume than George Eliot. Matthew Arnold re- 
gards as literature all knowledge that reaches us through 
books. Sydney Smith called Macaulay "a book in 
breeches." Small, beautiful islands in mid-ocean, being 
the peaks of lofty submerged mountains, typify the frag- 
ments of a great poet whose works have been lost to the 
world. According to Goethe, the ancient poems had no 
titles. Shakspeare uses a vocabulary of 15,000 words; and 
it is claimed that of every five verbs, adverbs, and nouns, 
four are Teutonic. The forest murmured like a shell, is 
George Moore's. When a poet has made a hit in writing the 
" Light Brigade," he is foolish to try the " Heavy Brigade." 
An interval of something over 400 years elapsed between 
the date of the last book of the Old Testament and the first 
of the New. It has been claimed that the best part of 
every author is to be found in his book. A novelist emi- 
nently uninspired, is what Andrew Lang calls a certain 
writer. Day wrapped her brightness up in sable weeds, is 
Tasso's exquisite description of night. Emerson, in speak- 
ing of Shakspeare, remarks, that a great poet who appears 
in illiterate times absorbs into his sphere all the light which 
is anywhere radiating. Josiah Quincy once declared, that 
if he were imprisoned and allowed to choose one book for 
his amusement, that book would be " Horace." Aristotle's 
rule for unity in a literary composition is — one day, one 
place, one action. Whoever has once come to appreciate 
and love a classic, will never afterwards be in danger from 



LITERATURE 249 

i 

vile stuff. Scott calls the Book of Job the grandest poem 
that ever was written. It is well to have on the stocks for 
reading several books at the same time. The light that 
never was on land or sea, is Wordsworth's. Hawthorne, 
after returning from England, read aloud to his family 
at Wayside all of Scott's novels. We are told by Balzac, 
that the name Lovelace belongs to an old English family, 
though Richardson used it for a creation which dwarfed all 
its other distinctions. Jefferson was eighteen days writing 
the Declaration of Independence. Only one of Emerson's 
sermons has ever been published, though much of the 
thought contained in his pulpit discourses is said to be 
embalmed in his lectures and essays. Richter asks, "Why 
should one single good observation or rule be lost because 
it is imprisoned in some monstrous folio?" Hawthorne 
thinks few men have done so much for their country as 
Walter Scott. Things strike us in another language, says 
Landor, which we pass over in our own. When Goethe 
was once asked to explain a passage in one of his early 
productions, he replied, "You probably know better than 
I do, being young." George Eliot's " Middlemarch " 
brought her $100,000. What a world is comprised in " lost 
literature! " At the age of fifty-four Locke began to write 
and give his thoughts to the world. Tennyson observes, 
that few things are well received at first. The history of 
literature, Emerson thinks, is a sum of very few ideas and 
of few original tales — all the rest being variations of these. 
Thackeray thought the poem so pompous and feeble, that 
he was positively surprised that it didn't get the medal. 
Lowell says Virgil's subject was a man; Dante's, man. 
C. F. Richardson informs us, that George Eliot first 
discovered that children have childlike characters. It is 
the opinion of Thackeray, that there are few people who 
talk about or read books so little as literary men. With 



250 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Macaulay everything would seem to be either superlatively 
good, or superlatively bad. Literature incloses the feelings, 
thoughts, and experiences of mankind in all ages. "Kiss," 
four letters, says Thackeray, and not one of them a labial. 
I don't care an et cetera, says Weir Mitchell. The follow- 
ing suggestive statement is by Addison, — "Books are the 
legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind; all other 
arts of perpetuating our ideas continue but a short time; 
statues can last but a few thousand years, edifices fewer, 
and colors still fewer than edifices; Michelangelo, Fontana, 
and Raphael will hereafter be what Phidias, Vitruvius, and 
Apelles are at present, — the names of great statuaries, 
architects, and painters, whose works are lost." Jeffrey 
spoke of Scott's diction as tinged with the careless richness 
of Shakspeare. After Washington Irving, it is hopeless for 
any American to write about England. Heine thinks 
Luther, by translating the Bible, created the German 
language. Montaigne and Bacon, our earliest essayists, 
are thought to be our best. Intense study of the Bible, 
Coleridge observes, will keep any writer from being vulgar 
in point of style. Hawthorne, with much satisfaction, 
speaks of reading Carlyle's "Heroes." On page 83, in 
Pepys's "Diary," the word success, used for event, means 
failure. The hair a thought browner, is Shakspeare's. 
Pisistratus was the first to found a library at Athens. The 
Spartans looked upon the art of rhetoric as the art of lying. 
China, it is believed, can lay claim to the invention of 
printing as applied to books. Sweet girl graduates in 
their golden hair, is in Tennyson's "Princess." John 
Bright read but few books, chief among them being the 
Bible. John and Paul were Luther's favorite writers. 
There are over forty English versions of Goethe's 
"Faust." Virgil left it in his will that Augustus should 
burn all his writings. Ruling passion strong in death, is 



LITERATURE 251 

from Pope. Blushing to the bone, is Browning's. Though 
last, not least, belongs to Shakspeare. The following is a 
translation from Sophocles, — 

"For lo! resplendent Phoebus with his light 
Calls up the cheerful birds to early song, 
And gloomy night hath lost her starry train." 

From Browning this, — 

" I liked that way you had with your curls, 
Wound to a ball in a net behind: 
Your cheek was as chaste as a Quaker girl's." 

Heraclitus of Ephesus, of the sixth century B.C., was the 
first to write Greek prose. It was a kind of honorable 
distinction to be suspected of being the author of the 
"Letters of Junius." Carlyle calls Gibbon the splendid 
bridge from the old world to the new. It has been re- 
marked by some one, that the talent and ingenuity of a 
writer serve only to perplex a subject he is not thoroughly 
acquainted with. Nearly every writer of distinction, even 
Longfellow not excepted, has incurred the reproach of 
immorality in his literary productions. The great Roman 
authors were generally not born at Rome. Protagoras 
seems to have been the first who distinguished the three 
genders of nouns. The dog drops the real bone and 
catches at the shadow; so says the fable. Jotham's fable 
of the trees in Judges is said to be the oldest fable extant. 
Great letter-writers, some one observes, are exceedingly 
few, yet not so few as the great biographers. Among the 
mutilated poets of antiquity, as Addison thinks, there is 
none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho. 
Cervantes wrote thirty dramas, but is immortal through 
" Don Quixote " alone. To exact of every man who writes, 
asserts Dr. Johnson, that he should say something new, 
would be to reduce authors to a small number. This 
from Spenser: — 



252 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"And fayned still her former angry mood, 
Thinking to hide the depth by troubling of the flood." 

By the same again, — "What need the bridge much 
broader than the flood." Hawthorne's stories have but 
few characters. We went on, says Weir Mitchell, talking 
of cats, and of Washington's aversion to them, and of the 
odd fact, that cats are not mentioned in the Bible. And 
Sidney, warbler of poetic prose, writes Cowper. By night 
in vivid dreams that sweetly lied, is from the Portuguese 
Camoens. So is what follows, — 

When day has smiled a soft farewell, 
And night-drops bathe each shutting bell, 
And shadows sail along the green, 
And birds are still and winds serene, 
I wonder silently. 

What an inestimable price, Addison says, would a Virgil 
or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were they, like 
a statue, a building, or a picture, to be confined only in 
one place, and made the property of a single person. Was 
Sir Humphrey Davy, or Bishop Berkeley, the first to say, 
"The greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary 
of darkness?" May thy summer of life be calm, thy 
autumn calmer, and thy winter never come, says Landor 
with his usual grace. All wine, Goethe says, deposits lees in 
the cask in the course of time. Voltaire wrote " Candide " 
as an answer to a letter from Rousseau. Milton did not 
say that "poetry should be simple, sensuous, passionate," 
but that it should be more simple, sensuous, passionate 
than prose. It is Poe's opinion, that on important topics 
it is better to be a good deal prolix than even a very little 
obscure. Lord Brougham thinks it a sad thing to reflect, 
that the three masterpieces of three such men as Voltaire 
Rousseau, and Byron should be the most immoral of their 
compositions. Hell in life here; hereafter life in hell, is 



LITERATURE 253 

Browning's. The same remarks, that geese have goose 
thoughts. And again, " Would we move the world, not 
earth but heaven must be our fulcrum." Schlegel praises 
the English of Shakspeare's time, before it had attained to 
that insipid correctness which came later to the prejudice 
of its originality. Camoens introduced firearms into the 
" Lusiad." Richardson's " Pamela," printed by Franklin in 
1744, was the first novel ever printed in America. There 
are books which, although really good, must be read at a 
particular age to be enjoyed. The chief value of a novel 
sometimes consists in what has but little to do with the 
story. It is estimated that from eighty to ninety per 
cent of the words found in a Latin author are, in some way, 
found in English also. It is asserted by Heine, that to 
the Spaniards is due the honor of having produced the 
best novel, as England is entitled to the credit of having 
achieved the highest rank in the drama; that the Germans 
are the best lyric poets on earth; and that no people possess 
such beautiful songs as the Germans. The same author 
says, that the pen of a man of genius is always greater 
than the man himself; that, without being himself clearly 
conscious of it, Cervantes wrote the greatest satire against 
human enthusiasm. The same again informs us, that the 
arrow belongs not to the archer when once it has left the 
bow, and the word no longer belongs to the speaker when 
once it has passed his lips, especially when it has been 
multiplied by the press. Matthew Arnold thinks the 
power of French literature is in its prose writers, the power 
of English literature in its poets. It is by means of familiar 
words, observes Joubert, that style takes hold of the reader 
and gets possession of him. One translator made Han- 
nibal drag cannon over the Alps. The history of litera- 
ture, says Heine, is a great morgue, wherein each seeks 
the dead who are near or dear to him; and when, among 



254 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the corpses of so many petty men, I behold the noble 
features of a Lessing or a Herder, my heart throbs with 
emotion. The Bible grew; the Koran was made, says 
Matthew Arnold. We speak of the Age of Pericles, of 
Augustus, of Elizabeth, of Louis XIV, and of Anne, 
because these ages were distinguished by literature. I 
found that books might make me learned, observes Lessing, 
but would never make a man of me. John Selden advises, 
that in quoting of books we quote such authors as are 
usually read. Aristotle's works are said to comprise more 
than four hundred volumes. It is remarked by Barrett 
Wendell, that literature, in general, must concern itself 
with interesting exceptions to the commonplace. Leigh 
Hunt insists, that the four great English poets — Shak- 
speare, Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton — were all fond of 
books. Some one has declared, that the world can never 
estimate the debt it owes to second-class literature; yet 
that it is basely afraid to acknowledge the debt. Shak- 
speare's women occupy but little space as compared with 
his men. According to Matthew Arnold's view, in the 
creation of a master-work of literature two powers must 
concur, — the power of the man and the power of the mo- 
ment, and the man is not enough without the moment. 
Fiction, Joubert thinks, has no business to exist unless it 
is more beautiful than reality. Balzac mentions one who 
turned critic, like all weak men who do not fulfil their early 
promise. All that is fine in Milton is beyond comparison, 
Sainte-Beuve asserts. Cowper's "John Gilpin" lay dor- 
mant for two or three years, until a famous actor gave it as 
a comic recitation, when it became the rage. Venice pro- 
duced no world-poet, no great literature, asserts W. R. 
Thayer. There are writings, observes Landor, that must 
lie long upon the straw before they mellow to the taste; 
and there are summer fruits that cannot abide the keeping. 



LITERATURE 255 

Mme. d'Arblay places Shakspeare's "Tempest" at the 
head of improbabilities. " Robinson Crusoe," appearing in 
the early reign of George I, may be regarded as the first 
modern novel. A nation lives only through its literature, 
says E. P. Whipple. Dowden remarks, that what is 
permanent and universal in literature, lives by the aid of 
no fashion of the day, but by virtue of its truth to nature, 
— and hence is derived the authority of the ancient 
classics, which have been tried by time and have endured. 
And still I tread on classic ground, is Addison's. J. A. 
Symonds states, that a period of fifty-three years, noted 
for iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, sufficed for the 
complete development of the greatest work of art the 
world has ever witnessed. Henry James thinks a language 
can only be indirectly enriched. Has the English language 
a greater number of monosyllables than other languages 
have? Achilles is the swift-footed when he is sitting still, 
is a remark of Macaulay. Carlyle speaks of Lessing as 
" a writer of books which have turned out to have truth in 
them." Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish 
abridgment, according to Montaigne's thinking. The 
figure of Royalty, worshipful in its marble redundancy, is 
a rather fine expression from George Meredith. The 
beautiful uncut hair of Graves, is Walt Whitman's. It is 
a Chinese law, that no piece of paper with writing on it 
should ever be destroyed. Bulwer has the following, — 

"Beneath the rule of men entirely great 
The pen is mightier than the sword." 

Of the eighty-three articles in The Federalist, it is believed 
that sixty-three were written by Hamilton, and three by 
him in collaboration with Madison. Voltaire writes in 
English, observes Horace Walpole, and not a sentence is 
tolerable English. Jefferson, it is said, wrote 2,500 letters. 



256 LITERARY BREVITIES 

No entertainment, says Lady Montagu, is so cheap as 
reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. Dryden says, — 
"All authors to their own defects are blind." Aaron Burr 
left no literary remains. 

LITTLE THINGS 

SOMETIMES, says Bulwer, the froth on the wave 
shows the change of the tide. What follows is from 
Matthew Arnold, — 

"Of little threads our life is spun, 
And he spins ill who misses one." 

It takes more than one shot to kill a wolf, is a remark of 
Balzac. Stilicidi casus lapidem cavat, is from Lucretius. 
All history, declares Charles Reade, shows that nothing is 
unconquerable except perseverance. Nulla dies sine linea, 
is the motto of Apelles. Fit audience find, though few, is 
Milton's. Virgil, in the "iEneid," portrays three children 
— Astyanax, Ascanius, and Marcellus. Goethe's " Wilhelm 
Meister " was once burned as an immoral book. It is well 
not to neglect small advantages; but it is dangerous to 
depend upon them, is the advice of Richelieu. Turgenieff 
suggests, that a kopec candle is enough to set the whole 
city of Moscow on fire. Sands make the mountain, 
moments make the year, is Young's. Mrs. Browning 
refers to little details in letters, which are such gold dust 
to absent friends. Nothing that calls back the remem- 
brance of a happy moment, observes Goethe, can be in- 
significant. The same remarked of one of the little errors 
in his writings, "Let the little wretch stay." Those only 
become great who think nothing little but themselves, is 
so happy that one wishes he knew its author. 



LONGEVITY 257 



LOGIC 



SENATOR Hoar and John Felton, a fellow-student at 
Harvard, engaged in a warm discussion one night and 
kept it up until a late hour. When they separated, Felton 
said, "We will continue this discussion tomorrow; mean- 
time won't you look up the history of the matter a little? " 
"Yes," replied Hoar, "and won't you study up a little on 
"Whately's Logic "? " It has been observed by some one, 
that every Union cannon in our civil war was shotted with 
Webster's reply to Hayne. They thought, remarks James 
Walker, that if they could but wring the neck of the 
crowing cock, it would never be day. It was a maxim of 
Louis XIV, that no man who is ill-informed, can help 
reasoning badly. When " Emile " was publicly burned, 
Rousseau announced, that burning is not a convincing 
reply. William James thought it always best to discuss 
things by concrete examples. It was the belief of Antoine 
Arnauld, that the greater part of men's errors comes less 
because they reason ill on true principles than because 
they reason well on false ones. Analogy is not argument, 
insists Charles Reade, which is the reason so many, people 
use it as such. By way of argument, we may suppose 
impossibilities, says Addison. 

LONGEVITY 

YOUNG wrote "Night Thoughts" after he was sixty 
years old. Robert Burns died in his thirty-seventh 
year. Pascal died at the age of thirty-nine. Browning 
lacked only three years of reaching the four score limit; 
while Tennyson lived three years beyond it. Balzac de- 
scribes a man as one of those who are born old and will 
always remain fifty, even if they live to be eighty. It 



258 LITERARY BREVITIES 

is to be regretted, that Bayard Taylor did not live long 
enough to write his projected life of Goethe. 

LOVE 

HEARING Hannah talk, writes Miss Mitford, is not 
the way to fall out of love with her. What we love 
is loveliest in departure, says Landor. Certain it is, re- 
marks Steele, there is no kind of affection so pure and 
angelic as that of a father for a daughter. Walter Pater 
puts this into the mouth of Aurelius, "Imitation is the 
most acceptable part of worship ; the gods had much rather 
mankind would resemble them than flatter them." Amiel 
thinks intellect is aristocratic, charity democratic. Ma- 
dame de Sevigne declares, that everyone loves in his own 
way. It is Thackeray's belief, that true love is better than 
glory; and a tranquil fireside, with the woman of your 
heart seated by it, the greatest good the gods can send us. 
The goal is not always to be reached, observes Joubert, 
but to serve as a mark for our aim; so it is with the precept, 
that we are to love our enemies. Elbert Hubbard declares, 
that to love a man so well as to imitate his faults is the 
highest compliment that can be paid him. In the opinion 
of Amiel, the more a man loves the more he suffers; and 
that the sum of possible grief for each soul is in proportion 
to its degree of perfection. Except in Shakspeare, asserts 
Coleridge, you can find no such thing as a pure conception 
of wedded love in our old dramatists; how transcendent 
over his age and his rivals was our sweet Shakspeare! 
Whittier said to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, "Elizabeth, 
thee would not be happy in heaven, unless thee could go 
missionary to the other place now and then." A passion 
that reasons is vitiated, says Balzac. Love despises 
genealogies, thinks Scott. It is related of a boy whose 



LOVE 259 

penurious father was brought home dead, that his first 
remark was, "Now we can burn as much wood as we like." 
George Sand pronounces love the divinest of music. In 
girls we love what they are, says Goethe, but in young 
men what they promise to be. Goethe thinks if one can- 
not love unconditionally, love is already in a critical state. 
Mrs. Siddons declared, that after she became celebrated 
none of her sisters loved her as they had done before. 
It is said that a very little thing will entertain two lovers. 
Goethe thinks nothing more charming than to see a 
mother with a child upon her arm. A sour father may 
reform prisons, asserts George Eliot. Balzac refers to a 
man whom all like and none esteem. Symonds remarks, 
that the dog Argus has no doubt; he sees his master 
Ulysses through his rags, and dies of joy. It is a re- 
mark of Goethe that he who does nothing for others, does 
nothing for himself. Joubert thinks one who is never 
a dupe cannot be a friend. For the sake of Iole Hercules 
exchanged his club for the distaff. Beatrice was a child 
of nine years when Dante first saw and fell in love with 
her; she married another and died at the age of twenty- 
four; she was the inspiration of the "Divine Comedy." 
Petrarch's love for Laura was love for a woman already 
married. He knows not love who has not seen her eyes, 
is a line from Petrarch. To love her is a liberal education, 
is Steele's famous sentence. Balzac calls love that vast 
excess of reason. The same author says charity which 
costs nothing is ignored in heaven. To make a Lucretia 
out of an Aspasia, Balzac asserts, one has only to inspire 
her with a great passion. According to Henry James, a 
man never likes a woman enough, unless he likes her more 
than enough. In strewing their tombs, the Romans 
affected the rose, the Greeks the amaranthus and myrtle. 
Balzac pronounces love to be a mutual yielding to each 



260 LITERARY BREVITIES 

other's likes and dislikes and dividing them. I am not 
sure, observes George Eliot, that men are fondest of those 
who try to be useful to them. The silver cup presented 
to Pope by Swift bore this inscription, Pignus amicitiae 
exiguum ingentis. Love that economizes is not a true 
love, declares Balzac. The same again asserts, that a 
renewal of love is never love. Heine's definition of love is, 
the secret malady of the heart. He who is not loved is 
alone, declares George Eliot. Seeing one through the prism 
of love, is Balzac's expression. May Sinclair asserts, that 
there can't be any generosity between equals. When love 
has got hold of us, farewell prudence, is Balzac's. When 
old men love a child there is no limit to their passion, is 
Balzac's also. Love quarrels oft in pleasing concord end, 
is a line from Milton. Poe thinks no man can consider 
himself entitled to complain of Fate while in adversity he 
still retains the unwavering love of woman. Rev. C. C. 
Everett writes, "Love is seen to be the most divine thing 
in the world. If the power that rules the world is not 
love as well as power, then man is superior to it." Love 
elevates great minds, Schiller thinks. Madame de Stael 
was Gibbon's early love. No one could tell whether 
George III really liked him or not. Said Balzac, "We 
want to remind you of ourselves by some pleasant souvenir, 
something that you will use every day, and something, too, 
that will not get worn out with use." A dram of sweete 
is worth a pound of soure, is Spenser's. Love is not in 
our choice but in our fate, as Dryden thinks. Babbling 
to her son, aged twenty months, in that onomatopoetic 
language which makes a baby smile, is from Balzac. Of 
all secret things love is the most public, is from the same. 
Pope satirized Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, because she 
laughed at him when he tried to make love to her. The 
gratitude of the clergy, remarks Smollett, is like their 



LOVE 261 

charity; it shuns the light. It is a thought of Amiel, that it 
is better to be lost than saved all alone; and it is a wrong 
to one's kind to wish to be wise without making others 
share our wisdom. A cottage with the man one loves, 
Fielding observes, is a palace. Thou art all ice; thy kind- 
ness freezes, is Shakspeare's. He thought of her with 
smiles, is Goethe's. Henry James says affection is blind to 
faults, not to beauties. If nothing weakens love like pos- 
session, Dumas claims, nothing nourishes it like hope. 
Love that two hearts makes one, makes eke one will, is a 
line from Spenser. The following is from Shakspeare, — 

"For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings, 
That then I scorn to change my state with Kings." 

We are told that Cupid would not rank among the gods if 
he could not perform miracles. Howells says it is not the 
ladies-man who is the favorite of the ladies. Napoleon 
has observed, that men are never attached to you by 
benefits. We have this from Catullus, — 

Nee meum respectet, ut ante, amorem, 
Qui illius culpa cecidit velut prati 
Ultimiflos, praetereunte postquam 
Tactus aratro est. 

Petrarch wrote four sonnets to express his pleasure upon 
picking up Laura's glove. Love takes the deepest root in 
the steadiest minds, Richardson remarks. Amantium 
irae amoris integratio est, is from Terence. It is an observa- 
tion of Balzac, that the heart has the singular power of 
giving extraordinary value to mere nothings. The follow- 
ing lines are from Shakspeare, — 

"Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, 
And won thy love doing thee injuries." 

Benefits cease to be benefits, Lessing observes, if one seeks 
to be repaid for them. There's beggary in the love that 



262 LITERARY BREVITIES 

can be reckoned, says Shakspeare. Voltaire would have 
it, that there can be no love without hope. There is no 
country, says the same author, where love has not turned 
lovers into poets. I owe him little duty, less love, is 
Shakspeare's. Though last, not least in love, is his also. 
Had every other gift, but wanted love, is from Matthew 
Arnold. The course of true love never did run smooth, is 
from Shakspeare. A man in love, says Balzac, is about 
as secret as a cannon shot. The following is Ben Jonson's 
arrangement from the Greek, — 

"Drink to me only with thine eyes, 
And I will pledge with mine; 
Or leave a kiss but in the cup 
And I'll not look for wine." 

It is cheaper in the long run, Lowell thinks, to lift men up 
than to hold them down. From Victor Hugo this, — 

"Angel, for heaven reserved, say where 
You trod, that I may kiss the ground." 

Lessing wished he might have given two years of his life 
to Sterne. There is not a word in the language, says 
Bulwer, that conveys so little endearment as the word 
"dear/' It is a saying of Mrs. Craigie, that the faults of 
those who love us are more acceptable than the virtues of 
those who treat us with neglect. Richardson observes, 
" I hope I am in less danger of falling in love with any man, 
as I can be civil and courteous to all." When a stream 
is sluiced off into several channels, there is less fear that it 
will overflow its banks. Romeo loved a Rosaline before 
he died for a Juliet. John Fiske is inclined to think, that 
the better we understand people, the more we like them. 
There is no deep love without jealousy, Dumas asserts. 
Mrs. Craigie says lovers in poetry and novels are usually 
idle. Love is rarely a hypocrite, Bulwer remarks. Take 



LOVE 263 

the child Beatrice from Dante's life, and should we have a 
Dante? It is all right, says Frances Little, to love hu- 
manity, but I was born a specialist. Richardson thought 
pity but one remove from love. Thoreau said John 
Brown would have left a Greek accent slanting- the wrong 
way, and righted up a fallen man. J. W. Chadwick de- 
clares, that we must save ourselves by saving others. 
Nelson in his dying moments desired his captain to give 
his love to Collingwood. I have never, God forgive me, 
had time to be in love, Benson declares. If ever you have 
grandchildren, Lowell asserts, you will grow miserly and 
approve of entails; depend upon it, 'twas grandfathers 
invented 'em. I only hope that when I go through the 
last door that opens for all, I may hear her coming step 
upon the other side, is Lowell's wish. A dalesman neighbor 
said Wordsworth was fond of children, but "children was 
niver vara fond o' him." Let Caesar have the world, if 
Marcia's mine, is in Addison's " Cato." It is a wise saying 
of Epicurus, that there is nothing so productive of joy as 
doing kindness. Hawthorne asserts, that men who at- 
tempt to do the world more good than the world is able 
entirely to comprehend, are almost invariably held in 
bad odor. We are told that Lord Althorp, after the death 
of his wife, gave up hunting, not because he thought it 
wrong, but because he did not think it seemly or suitable 
that a man after such a loss should be so very happy as he 
knew hunting would make him. During the madness of 
George III, " King Lear " was not played on the English 
stage. It is Hare's advice, that we believe all the good we 
hear of our neighbor, and forget all the bad. Why not, 
for the purpose of conjugation, use the verb "to hate" 
instead of the verb "to love?" It is a remark of Goethe, 
that if he had entered into any love affair at all, he should 
have become as a compass, which cannot possibly point 



264 LITERARY BREVITIES 

correctly when it has an influencing magnet at its side. 
It is a true remark of Sir Arthur Helps, that you cannot 
pet anything much without doing it mischief. Leigh 
Hunt observes, that the greatest possible sum of happiness 
for mankind demands, that great part of our pleasure 
should be founded in that of others. Pascal had a great 
mind and a great heart, which great minds do not always 
have, so says Sainte-Beuve. Marquise de Sevigne was 
convinced that a man could not be a civil, polished, well- 
appearing man, unless he were always in love. It has 
been observed, that a love which comes late is often the 
most violent. La Rochefoucauld has noted, that persons 
have great difficulty in breaking apart when they no 
longer love each other. The first Scipio was called "the 
walking stick," because of his filial habit of allowing his 
decrepit father to lean upon him. I shall live only in your 
hearts henceforth, and I wish no other burying place, is a 
saying of Balzac. Every good deed, Hare remarks, does 
good even to the doer. Lowell observes, that there are 
some men who never put their hands in their pockets, and 
who yet give away a great deal in their faces and manners. 
Bacon says it is not granted to man to love and be wise. 
Kindness, remarks Leigh Hunt, itself is the best of all 
truths. The following piece of extravagance is Heine's, — 

"From Norway's forests 
I snatch their tallest pine tree 
And plunge it deep 
Into the crater of iEtna, 
And with this gigantic, fire-filled pen 
I write on the dark dome of heaven: 
'Agnes, I love thee'!" 

Goethe thinks love is always of a somewhat impertinent 
nature. Lord Brooke requested, that it might be graven 
on his tomb, that Sir Philip Sidney was his friend. Le 



LOVE 265 

Sage declares love to be a mental derangement, forcibly- 
drawing all our views and attachments into one vortex — 
a species of hydrophobia. It was the belief of Hawthorne, 
that human character in its individual developments — 
human nature in the mass — is best studied in its wishes. 
Wish him to be thine equal — that is the test of charity, 
says Crothers. Turgenieff calls affection a passion elimi- 
nating self. Love always makes us better, religion some- 
times, power never, is Landor's belief. It is the nature of 
mankind, observes Addison, to love everything that is 
prohibited. It was Cain who said, "Am I my brother's 
keeper?" Thackeray says people hate, as they love, 
unreasonably. It was a maxim of Goethe, that love 
engenders love, and that one who is loved can easily 
govern. All strong men love life, observes Heine. We 
all need to be loved, says George Sand, in order that the 
good in us may be developed; but we need to be loved 
differently, one with unwearying indulgence, another with 
steady severity. Shakspeare declares, that men have died 
and worms have eaten them, but not for love. Goethe 
remarks of some one, that she was not lovely when she 
loved — the greatest misfortune that can befall a woman. 
Euripides tells us, that every man is fondest of that in 
which he is best. A faithful dog, Savonarola declares, 
does not leave off barking in his master's defense because a 
bone is thrown at him. It is an extreme thought of Paul 
Bourget, that love would not be love unless it could carry- 
one to crime. Trollope speaks surprisingly of one who 
knows nothing of that beautiful love that can be true to a 
false friend. Victor Hugo speaks of "a humanity without 
frontiers." An old monk, in a dream, saw another monk 
of recognized faults among the saints in heaven, and asked 
how this monk could deserve such a reward; the reply was, 
"He never condemned anyone." The pleasure of love, 



266 LITERARY BREVITIES 

says George Moore, is in loving, not in being loved. The 
same says the delights of obedience are the highest felicities 
of love. A man who can express love felicitously, observes 
George Sand, is very little in love. Dr. Johnson, even in 
his days of poverty, used to thrust pennies into the hands 
of sleeping children whom he passed in his dreary midnight 
rambles. We first endure, then pity, then embrace, is 
Pope's familiar line. By an inadvertent act of cruelty 
we are sometimes made merciful. There are two things,* 
says George Eliot, not to be hidden — love and a cough. 
Tolstoy remarks of his mother, "It was a necessity for her 
to love what was not herself." Lamb speaks of " lovers' 
wrangles and endearing differences." Marlowe's line is, 
— "Come live with me and be my love." Henry III, in 
a philanthropic mood, gathered all the children in the 
neighborhood of Windsor and gave them a feast; the royal 
children were weighed, and their weight in silver was dis- 
tributed among the poor children. It is an observation of 
Hawthorne, that the young have less charity for the follies 
of the aged than the aged have for those of the young. It 
has been asserted, that men naturally dislike the very vir- 
tues of their enemies. From Dryden we have, — 

"He raised a mortal to the skies, 
She drew an angel down." 

The desire of the man, thinks Coleridge, is for the woman, 
but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man. 
Chesterton believes the way to love anything is to realize 
that it might be lost. Si vis amari, ama, is Seneca's. 

LUXURY 

STRATONICUS said concerning the luxury of the 
Rhodians, "They built houses as if they were im- 
mortal, but they feasted as if they meant to live a little 



MANNERS 267 

while." Many dishes have made many diseases, was noted 
by Seneca. Nihil enim tarn mortiferum quam luxuria, is 
Seneca rhetor's sentiment. The mullet was considered 
stale, Seneca informs us, unless it died in the hands of the 
guest. Emerson pronounces the taste for luxury to be 
"that frequent misfortune of men of genius." It is related 
by Seneca, that one of the Sybarites, that saw a fellow hard 
at work a-digging, desired him to give over, as it made him 
weary to see him. 

MAGNANIMITY 

WHEN the letters of the traitor Avidius Cassius 
were brought to Marcus Aurelius in Syria, the 
latter ordered them to be burned without 
being opened. Scott said he relinquished poetry "because 
Byron bet me." It is a matter of congratulation, — if one 
possesses such a disposition that he can enjoy seeing others 
happy. According to Macaulay, William III gave the 
tale-bearer such a look that his story went back down his 
throat. Cicero, being asked which of Demosthenes's 
orations he liked best, replied, "The longest." When 
urged to attack the enemy at night, Alexander refused, as 
he "could not steal a victory." 

MANNERS 

SOME acute men are disagreeable in conversing and 
discussing, owing to their ill manners. Tom has read 
enough, Addison remarks, to make him very impertinent. 
At his receptions, President Washington did not shake 
hands, but simply bowed. Calthrop mentions some one 
who excelled in the art of polite discourtesy. Mr. Glad- 
stone declared that Queen Victoria's accession had abol- 
ished swearing. 



268 LITERARY BREVITIES 

MARRIAGE 

IT was an ancient custom with the Samnites, to select 
every year ten of the most virtuous young women and 
ten of the most virtuous young men, and then to marry 
the most excellent young man to the most excellent young 
woman, the second to the second, and so on in order. 
When twenty-six years old, Poe married Virginia Clemm, 
a girl of thirteen. Napoleon was never done lamenting his 
Austrian marriage with Marie Louise, as it was the cause 
of his making war with Russia. The married woman, 
Balzac declares, is a slave whom one must know how to 
set upon a throne. The same author remarks, that newly 
married people are terrible destroyers. Napoleon and 
Josephine were married in accordance with civil contract; 
upon Josephine's entreaty, however, two nights before the 
Coronation, they were privately married by the Pope. 
La Bruyere thought the most fortunate husband found 
reason to regret his condition at least once in twenty-four 
hours. Plato would not have a man marry before thirty; 
Aristotle would make thirty-five the minimum limit. R. L. 
Stevenson notes, that all Shakspeare's male characters, 
with the single exception of Falstaff, are marrying men. 
It is related of a certain widow, that in her haste to marry 
again she fanned her late husband's grave to have it dry 
more quickly. Dies in single blessedness, is Shakspeare's. 
There is that in a wedding that appeals to universal 
sympathy, observes Bulwer. Theodore Parker calls a 
happy wedlock a long falling in love. The viaticum of 
married life, says Balzac, lies in these words — resignation 
and self-sacrifice. Napoleon was seven years younger 
than Josephine. Lowell thinks there is no ballast like a 
wife and children. In 46 B.C., Cicero contracted a second 
marriage with Publilia, a rich young girl of fourteen. It 



MEMORY 269 

is a remark of Landor, that marriage ends pupilage, and 
royalty ends friendship. All the apostles except St. John 
were married men. Some one wittily remarks, that a 
happy marriage is one where the wife is blind and the 
husband deaf. It is a declaration of Goethe, that marriage 
is the beginning and end of culture; that it makes the 
savage mild, and that the most cultivated has no better 
opportunity for displaying his gentleness. Marriage is 
the end of man, is the double entendre of one of Balzac's 
characters. Any girl, however inexperienced, knows how 
to accept an offer, but it requires a vast deal of address to 
refuse one, is anonymous. A woman is more likely to 
marry at the end of a year of her widowhood than after 
several years. 

MEMORY 

MY memory, states Rousseau, serves me in propor- 
tion to my dependence upon it; the moment I 
have committed to paper that with which it was charged, 
it forsakes me forever. As I recall them (early associa- 
tions), says Thackeray, the roses bloom again, and the 
nightingales sing by the calm Bendemeer. Shelley never 
forgot what he once learned. A certain Boddington had 
a poor memory, and attended Feinaigle's lectures on the 
art of memory; when he had finished the course, some one 
asked Boddington the lecturer's name; for his life, Bod- 
dington could not tell. All science is but remembrance, 
is a dictum of Plato. It was the thought of de Ranee, that 
it would be a very sweet thing to be so entirely forgotten, 
that we lived only in the memory of friends. 



270 LITERARY BREVITIES 

MIRACLES 

IT is Pascal's definition of a miracle, that it is an effect 
. which exceeds the natural force of the means employed. 
St. Augustine declared, that were it not for the miracles, 
he should not be a Christian. It was an assertion of 
Pascal, that any man can do what Mahomet did, for he 
wrought no miracles, he was confirmed by no prophesy; 
but no man can do what Jesus Christ did. The same says 
again, that the fulfilment of prophesy is an enduring 
miracle. With every leaf a miracle, says Walt Whitman. 
Miracles do not happen every day, says Ibsen. 

MISFORTUNE 

IT is a remark of Goldsmith, that disappointed love 
makes the misery of youth; disappointed ambition 
that of manhood; and successless avarice that of age. 
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, is Shak- 
speare's. She grew disconsolate, observes Sienkiewicz, 
and sought, as women do usually, solace in suffering. 
Misfortunes never come single, is the observation of some 
one. Though misfortune is supposed to develop virtues, 
Balzac thinks it only does so in virtuous people. The 
following is Schiller's, — 

"With light heart the poor fisher moors his boat, 
And watches from the shore the lofty ship 
Stranded amid the storm." 

Resignation, says Balzac, is the last stage of man's mis- 
fortune. Three removes are as bad as a fire, is Franklin's 
philosophy. According to Addison's view, a misery is not 
to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the 
temper of the sufferer. 



MODESTY 271 



MODESTY 



IN the theatrical audiences of Shakspeare's time the 
women wore masks, so that there seemed less im- 
propriety in their listening to the coarse passages of the 
drama. A man so modest as to be unwilling to look at 
the naked truth. Chesterfield declares modesty to be the 
only sure bait when you angle for praise. Blush like a 
black dog, is Shakspeare's way of expressing absurdity. 
Balzac asserts, that doctors never talk medicine, real nobles 
never talk ancestors, men of genius never talk of their own 
works. It was remarked a propos of Marlborough's 
modesty, that the only things he had forgotten were his 
own deeds, and the only things he remembered were the 
misfortunes of others. Plato, in all his dialogues, is said 
to have mentioned himself but twice; he makes Socrates, 
his master, his chief figure. Balzac calls modesty the con- 
science of the body. Whittier left it in his will, that his 
gravestone should be of the same size as the others of his 
family. The poet Gray refused the laureateship. Wash- 
ington, unlike Cromwell, Frederick the Great, and Napo- 
leon, never talked about himself. Emerson accepted the 
office of class poet after seven others had declined it. Says 

Wordsworth, — 

"Strongest minds 

Are often those of whom the noisy world 
Hear least." 

Neither Goldsmith's nor Racine's library contained at the 
time of his death any of his own works. Bulwer declares, 
that the alliteration of modesty and merit is pretty enough, 
but where merit is great, the veil of that modesty you 
admire never disguises its extent from its possessor. Mrs. 
Craigie thinks the truest modesty is three parts pride. 
The following is from Richardson, — "There are points so 



272 LITERARY BREVITIES 

delicate, my dear Mrs. Norton, that it is a degree of 
dishonor to have a vindication of them appear to be 
necessary." At the surrender of Quebec, Pitt modestly 
declined all demonstrations of praise in his behalf, saying, 
"The more a man is versed in business, the more he finds 
the hand of Providence everywhere. " Newton modestly 
called his great work the Principia, "the beginning." 
Sainte-Beuve informs us, that La Rochefoucauld had not 
the courage to speak before five or six persons. 

MORALITY 

IT is the belief of T. W. Higginson, that the masses of the 
people are unquestionably more critical as to morality 
than an exclusive circle. As a shell, man is murmurous 
with morality, says George Moore. It is a notion of 
Tolstoy, that an evil action may not be repeated; but that 
evil thoughts generate all evil actions. Bacon tried to 
excuse his wrong doing upon the ground that there are 
vitia temporis as well as vitia hominis. 

MOTIVES 

JOHN Randolph declares, that there are men who do 
right from wrong motives. Coleridge thinks the man 
makes the motive, and not motive the man. 

MUSIC 

BALZAC is authority for the statement, that the 
national air of England — "God save the King" — 
was composed by Lulli for the chorus of either "Athalie" 
or "Esther." A discord ending in a concord sets off the 
harmony, says Bacon. Joubert likened himself to an 



MUSIC 273 

iEolian harp, that can sound a few beautiful notes but 
cannot play an air. Voltaire, when asked if he liked 
music, replied, "It doe^ not precisely annoy me." The 
sarcasms aimed at poor music have seldom excelled in 
happy expression the following from "Gil Bias," — "I hate 
loud music; be so good as to let me be ruined pianissimo." 
The minor poets wrote the great national songs, and the 
minor musicians fitted them to music. Luther played 
both the guitar and the flute. "Annie Rooney" and 
"Down went McGinty" are both said to be taken from 
Bach. Mendelssohn never refused to play when requested. 
The braying of an ass is declared to be the only unmusical 
sound in nature. Addison thought the poetry of the Vene- 
tian opera "exquisitely ill." The greatest discords occur, 
Carl Schurz has observed, when several persons at the 
same time play the same tune in different keys. Jenny 
land's children were not particularly musical. Abbe 
Galiani, when asked his opinion of Mile. Arnould's sing- 
ing, replied, "It is the finest asthma I ever heard." Ger- 
many is said to be the most musical country in the world. 
James T. Field said he would rather be a fine tenor singer 
than anything else in the world. Let those who would 
keep young hearts asunder beware of music, is Washington 
Irving's advice. Landor mentions the fact, that men, 
like birds, never sing well in hot climates. Walter Raleigh 
speaks of the futility of trying to render a symphony on a 
flute. Dr. Johnson once meditated learning to play the 
fiddle, but gave it up on being told that to fiddle well one 
must play all the time. A good tenor is generally a man 
of much human frailty. All music jars, says Cervantes, 
when the soul is out of tune. Some one characterizes a 
particular absurdity as much out of keeping as a trumpet 
accompaniment to "John Anderson, my Jo." Socrates 
played upon the lyre. Her tragic tone was thunder set to 



274 LITERARY BREVITIES 

music, is Charles Reade's. Balzac asserts, that music 
alone has power to make us live within ourselves. The 
same author states, that a musician's genius has a mental 
eclipse when he is surrounded by ignorant persons. This 
music, declares Thackeray, would make an alderman 
dance. Pythagoras conceived the idea of the music of 
the spheres. Balzac tells of a singer whose fame was ever 
prospective. It has been noted, that music is the only 
fine art that appeals to the lower animals as well as to man. 
The finer the music, remarks Balzac, the less ignorant 
persons like it. It is the same tune, observes Fielding, 
whether you play it in a higher or a lower key. Singest 
of summer in full-throated ease, is from Keats. iEschy- 
lus was a musical composer, and Sophocles a practical 
musician. Aristotle assures us, that music was an essen- 
tial element of the Greek tragedy. In all music, thinks 
Balzac, there lies, besides the idea of the composer, the 
soul of the performer who, by a privilege peculiar to this 
art alone, can lend purpose and poetry to phrases of no 
intrinsic value. Each of the seven musical notes is called 
by a first syllable of one of the first seven lines of the 
Catholic hymn to St. John. Scientific music, as Poe sees 
it, has no claim to intrinsic excellence — it is fit for scien- 
tific ears only. When the nightingale pipes up, it is be- 
lieved, the other birds stop singing. Shakspeare to the 
contrary notwithstanding, the nightingale does sometimes 
sing by day. The best musicians, declares Miinsterberg, 
cannot play a symphony on a fiddle and a drum. That 
surfeit of harmony which my wife calls a concert, is 
Balzac's. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
are sweeter, says Keats. Voices diverse make up sweet 
melodies, says Dante. Shakspeare asserts, that Orpheus' 
lute was strung with poets' sinews. How sour sweet 
music is! is remarked by one of Shakspeare's characters. 



MUSIC 275 

Henry T. Finck observes, that Liszt was the first pianist 
who showed that an artist who plays without his notes is 
much more eloquent than one who uses them, just as an 
extempore speaker is more eloquent than one who reads a 
lecture. Leigh Hunt calls a piano a piece of furniture with 
a soul in it. The following is Shelley's, — 

"Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." 

In 1853, Ole Bull took Adelina Patti, the great soprano, 
on his concert tours. Haydn has been called the father of 
classic music. Sweet birds antheming the morn, is one of 
the delicate touches of Keats. Married to immortal verse, 
is Milton's. Beethoven thought words a less capable 
medium of proclamation for feelings than music. Bee- 
thoven said, "Handel is the greatest musical composer 
that ever lived; I would Uncover my head and kneel on 
his grave." The following is from Victor Hugo, — 

"For music sweet can pour 
Into the soul a harmony divine, 
That like a heavenly choir wakes in the heart 
A thousand voices." 

Madame De Stael believes, that of all arts none save music 
can be purely religious. What a stupid thing, Sir Arthur 
Helps observes, it is, that we are not all taught music! 
Why learn the language of many portions of mankind, and 
leave the universal language of feelings, as you would call 
it, unlearned? It is related, that Jacques Boileau, when 
performing the service in the Sainte-Chapelle, sang with 
both sides of the choir, and always out of time and tune. 
Hamerton is of the opinion, that Ole Bull arrived at his 
most wonderful effects less by manual practise than medi- 
tation; that he practised less and thought more than most 
violinists. While music is in the world, God abides among 



276 LITERARY BREVITIES 

us, thinks Benson. Your music so enchanted me, writes 
James Howell, that my soul was ready to come out at my 
ears. It is H. W. Dresser's observation, that the musical 
note, however pure, has no meaning for us unless it is 
sounded in unison with others. Fielding thought it a 
wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time with- 
out putting one another out. According to Landor, 
Mahomet detested singing. Of all the arts, says Hamer- 
ton, music is the only one that the blessed are believed to 
practise in a future state. Are there not people who 
destroy the sight of singing birds to make them sing 
better? When people are alone, remarks Victor Hugo, 
they do not speak, they sing. When Landor heard the 
song of the nightingale, he neglected the naturalist. 
George Moore declares the organ to be a Protestant in- 
strument. Montaigne, when a child, used to be awakened 
from sleep by music. 

MYTHOLOGY 

ANTAEUS was ten times as strong when he touched 
the earth. iEsculapius was killed by a thunderbolt 
from Jove for cheating Pluto of his due number of subjects 
by means of his very singular medical skill. Achilles was 
allowed to love Helen after death among the shades. 
When the crew of the Argo failed to launch her, by the 
intimation of the figure-head Orpheus played upon the 
harp and the ship glided into the water through the in- 
fluence of music. Lynceus, of the Argonautic crew, could 
see through a grindstone. Apollo found himself unwisely 
indulgent in allowing Phaethon to drive his team. From 
the hoof -beat of Pegasus sprang the fountain of the Muses, 
called Hippocrene. Plato mentions the river of unmind- 
fulness, the water of which no vessel could hold. Juno is 



NAMES 277 

the only goddess, according to Balzac, to whom mythologi- 
cal tradition does not give a lover. Pindar calls the 
Muses "the black-haired nine." Heine thinks it a very 
decent thought of Homer to give the much-loved Venus 
a husband. 

NAMES 

OWING to the part Clay took in connection with 
the Missouri Compromise, he was called the 
"Great Pacificator"; he was also called the 
"Great Commoner." The word "pagan" means one who 
lives in a village. Isocrates was called "The old man 
eloquent," as was John Quincy Adams in recent times. 
Sir Philip Sidney's father spelled his name Sydney. The 
word "nihilism" was coined by Turgenieff. John Fiske's 
real name was Edmund Fiske Green. At Vienna they 
called Gustavus Adolphus, in derision, the "Snow King." 
Elizabeth called Sir Philip Sidney " my Philip," in distinc- 
tion from Philip II of Spain. The soldiers of Cutts, at 
the retaking of Namur, called him "Old Salamander," a 
term also applied to Farragut at Mobile Bay. Thomas 
Hart Benton, who was a strenuous hard-money man, was 
called "Old Bullion." Walter Scott was familiarly called 
"Old Peveril." Poe calls Dr. Johnson "that scurrilous 
Ursa Major." The name "Gotham," applied by Irving 
to New York City, was taken from an English village. 
"Merry" England originally meant "famous" England. 
Addison tells us, that the Emperor of Persia denominates 
himself the "Sun of Glory and the Nutmeg of Delight." 
Some one states, that nicknames are durable things. The 
Jacobins took their name from the old Jacobin convent 
where their first meetings were held. Hawthorne calls 
the people who came over in the Mayflower "Puritan- 
Pilgrims." 



278 LITERARY BREVITIES 

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 

THE elder Cato noted the fact, that the Romans were 
like a flock of sheep; that a man can better drive a 
flock of them than one of them. From 1661 to 1700 France 
could be called the first state in the world. It has been 
observed, that Hebraism, as against Hellenism, sets doing 
above knowing. The Ashantee wished to be painted 
white. The beauty of Greece, Lowell declares, was that 
the people had very few ideas, and those simple and great. 
Mungo Park says an African will sooner forgive a blow 
than a term of reproach applied to his ancestors. Boeotia, 
often a synonym for stupidity, produced Pindar, Epami- 
nondas, and Plutarch. Some one asserts, that the Greeks 
were entirely ignorant of the pleasures of betting. What- 
ever is obscure, says Bulwer, is not French. Sir Arthur 
Helps thinks the Spartans would never have grown into a 
great people. Leigh Hunt observes, that most nations 
have their good as well as bad features; that in Vanity 
Fair there are many booths. No Frenchman, asserts 
Barrett Wendell, can ever hate a foreigner so intensely 
as he hates Frenchmen of other opinions than his own. 
I suppose, remarks Benson, there is no nation in the 
world which has so little capacity for doing nothing 
gracefully, and enjoying it, as the English. Napoleon's 
foreign origin, a ground of offense with the French, was of 
service to him in his Italian campaigns. Richter observes, 
that Providence has given to the English the empire of 
the sea; to the French that of the land; and to the Ger- 
mans that of the air. A nation's possessions, according 
to the view of Sir Arthur Helps, are the great words that 
have been said in it, the great deeds that have been done 
in it, the great buildings and the great works that have 
been made in it. America is the only land in the world 



NATURE 279 

where caste has never had a foothold, nor has left a trace; 
but this, be it said, is true of the white race alone; said by 
Frederic Harrison. It is stated, that the Romans had big 
ears. In the time of Charles I, a royal salute was fired 
with the guns shotted. 

NATURE 

NATURE is commanded by obeying her, says Bacon. 
The following is Mrs. Browning's, — 

"Earth's crammed with heaven 
And every common bush afire with God, 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes." 

Seneca declares, that nature has made nothing hard that 
is necessary. This is from Tasso, — 

"The golden sun rose from the silver wave, 
And with his beams enameled every green." 

It commonly rains when it was wet enough before, is an 
observation of Luther. The hills are clothed with pines 
sun-proof, is Matthew Arnold's. Nihil humani a me 
alienum puto, is by Terence. Coleridge thinks the ant the 
most intellectual, and the dog the most affectionate, of 
irrational creatures. Aristotle believed in the eternity, 
not the creation, of matter; while Herbert Spencer de- 
clares both to be unthinkable. Naturam expelles furca, 
tamen usque recurret, says Horace. Gold is always near 
the surface. George Eliot alludes to one whose length of 
limb seemed to have used up his mind. It has been re- 
marked by some one, that French human nature is nature 
elevated and adorned by art. Emerson reminds us, that 
the frost which kills the harvest of a year saves the harvests 
of a century, by killing the weevil or the locust. Chaucer 
loved flowers so intensely that he could spend the whole 



280 LITERARY BREVITIES 

day gazing alone on the daisy. It is preposterous to 
argue the naturalness of a miracle. Nature, remarks 
Thackeray, has written a letter of credit on some men's 
faces, which is honored almost wherever presented. Pliny 
tells us, that carrier pigeons took messages to Mutina, when 
besieged by Antony. It is claimed, that at least one- 
fourth part of a country ought to be covered with trees in 
clumps. Thoreau reminds us, that heaven is under our 
feet as well as over our heads. The albatross is said to 
sleep on the wing. It is a notion of Dr. Holmes, that 
Emerson contemplates himself as belonging to nature, 
while Wordsworth feels as if nature belonged to him. 
Balzac would have us know, that a pearl is the result of 
disease. Nature will get the better of dignity, is Fielding's. 
Now that October has come, would we, if it were in our 
power to effect the change, have summer repeat itself 
rather than have winter return as usual? The Swiss lakes 
are mostly without islands. Until comparatively recent 
years no one thought the natural scenery of Scotland 
beautiful. Natural scenery did not please Scott unless it 
had local legend. Landor observes, that the clouds that 
intercept the heavens from us come not from the heavens 
but from the earth. The depth of shadow, says Dowden, 
is proportioned to the brightness of the light. Steele often 
lamented, that we cannot close our ears as we can our eyes. 
The banks are overflowne when stopped is the flood, is 
Spenser's. The regiment of giants (mountain peaks), says 
Amiel, sleeps while the stars keep sentinel. Some fancy 
that the presence of gold is indicated by the prevalence 
of spiders. To the mind of Scott, it is a hundred times 
more easy to inflict pain than to create pleasure. Cole- 
ridge has discovered, that brute animals have the vowel 
sounds; that man only can utter consonants. We touch 
heaven, remarks Carlyle, when we lay our hands on a 



NATURE 281 

human body. Amiel would woo the birds to build in his 
beard, as they do in the headgear of some cathedral saint. 
Blind men never blush. It is an observation of Addison, 
that the finest wines often have the taste of the soil. The 
lower animals have special natural powers as impossible 
to us as our intellectual powers are to them. The Bush- 
men of South Africa are the shortest of mankind. Emer- 
son, in his poetical way, says the wounded oyster mends 
his shell with pearl. Balzac asks why nature is so prodi- 
gal of the color green. The same remarks, that all the 
great men whose portraits he has seen are shortnecked. 
These lines are by Burns, — 

"For nature smiles as sweet, I ween, 
To shepherds as to Kings." 

The rocks bordering the ocean are protected from the 
wearing of the waves by the sea-weed. To know good 
liquor, Scott insists, you should drink where the vine 
grows. Hawthorne wondered if it rained in Paradise; 
and if so, thought how unpleasant it must have been for 
naked Eve. It used to be thought, that the fragrance of 
flowers robbed hunting dogs of their scent. C. C. Everett 
observes, that it is only when the earthquake is understood 
to have its place in the orderly movement of the world, 
that God is found also in that. And every flower that sad 
embroidery wears, is Milton's. Diodorus Siculus speaks 
of a blossom whose odor kills. Dixon H. Lewis of 
Alabama was of huge size; the newspaper men at Wash- 
ington used to say that he had to be surveyed for a pair of 
trousers. The following is from Schiller, — 

"The morning, see, has on the mountain tops 
Kindled her glowing beacon." 

Homerus eadem aliis sopitu quietest, is a line from Lucretius. 
It is remarked by Schiller, that matter is not that which 



282 LITERARY BREVITIES 

produces consciousness, but that which limits it, and con- 
fines its intensity within certain bounds. For my own 
part, declares William James, so far as logic goes, I am 
willing that every leaf that ever grew in the world's forests 
and rustled in the breeze should become immortal. Na- 
poleon's height was exactly five feet two and one-half 
inches, French measure. Sed iumenta vocant, et sol in- 
clined; eundum est, is Juvenal's line. De nilo quoniam 
fieri nil posse videmus, is one from Lucretius. When a 
stranger asked to see Wordsworth's study, the maid said, 
"This is master's library, but he studies in the fields.'* 
Colts reared on dry stony places have hard hoofs, which 
need no protection. How hard it is to hide the sparks of 
nature, says Shakspeare. The apple is thought to be a 
native of Italy. The following is by Sir Charles Vaughan, 

"There's not a spring 
Or leaf but hath his morning hymn." 

Democritus asserted the eternity of matter. The water- 
fall shook more vehemently his white beard, is Heine's 
way of saying it. It is Plutarch's belief, that of all the 
senses, that of hearing soonest disturbs the mind, agitates 
the passions, and unhinges the understanding. Shakspeare 

y ' "When I have plucked the rose, 

I cannot give it vital growth again." 

Pascal describes the universe as an infinite sphere, the 
center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. 
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep, is Shak- 
speare's. This is Tennyson's, — 

"The blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall 
In silence." 

No man, remarks Pascal, thinks himself unhappy in having 
but one mouth, but any man is unhappy if he have but 



NATURE 283 

one eye. The same author calls rivers roads which move 
and carry us whither we wish to go. One touch of nature 
makes the whole world kin, is Shakspeare's. Sweet 
flowers are slow, and weeds make haste, is his also. Quid ? 
tu ignoras arbor es magnas diu crescere, una hora extirpari ? 
Quintus Curtius asks. We are told that the wild goose 
never lays a tame egg. The following verses are by 
Matthew Arnold, — 

"Loveliness, magic, and grace, 
They are here! they are set in the world, 
They abide; and the finest of souls 
Hath not thrilled by them all, 
Nor the dullest been dead to them quite. 
The poet who sings them may die, 
But they are immortal and live, 
For they are the life of the world. 
Will ye not learn it and know, 
When ye learn that the poet is dead, 
That the singer was less than the themes?" 

Weak plants, says Landor, perish in the sunshine. The 
weather which favors the vines spoils the meadows, 
illustrates the principle of protection. It is a dictum of 
Bacon, that a man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds. 
George Sand has observed, that you must always talk to 
dogs if you want them to be intelligent. Give a crust to 
a surly dog and he will bite you, some one has said. Man 
is born crying, lives laughing, and dies groaning, is the 
remark of some one. Crothers finds it hard to draw the 
line between stimulants and narcotics. Balzac claims 
that something better than England is everywhere to be 
found; whereas it is excessively difficult to find the 
charms of France outside France. Burns has this, — 

"For nature made her what she is, 
And ne'er made sic anither." 



284 LITERARY BREVITIES 

This from Wordsworth, — 

"And 'tis my faith that every flower 
Enjoys the air it breathes." 

Milton speaks of minute drops from off the eaves. These 
lines are Shakspeare's, — 

"For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; 
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." 

Henry James says a dozen little mountains in the distance 
were peeping over each other's shoulders. Balzac says a 
sleeping dog has eyes and ears for his master. Thoreau 
thought church spires deformed the landscape. With his 
poetical fancy, Ole Bull could hear the delicate bluebell 
ring. One never goes twice on the same stream, Mrs. 
Craigie reminds us. Says Schiller, — 

"No crooked paths to virtue lead, 
111 fruit has ever sprung from evil seed." 

Hazlitt makes laughter and tears the characteristic signs 
of humanity. Thoreau said if he ever got to heaven, he 
would expect to find the pine trees there, and still above 
him. It is the Russian's notion, that the higher blood a 
horse has, the thinner is his skin. Benvenuto Cellini 
says diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires never 
grow old, and that these four are precious metals. D'Al- 
embert remarks, that there are two things that can reach 
the top of a pyramid, the eagle and the reptile. Benson 
is inclined to think Gray to have been the first man who 
deliberately cultivated a delight in those monstrous cre- 
ations of God we call mountains. The same asserts, 
that there are very few people who are highly developed 
in one faculty who do not pay for it in some other part 
of their natures. Walter Raleigh declares, that in early 
civilizations men are never really familiar with nature — 



NATURE 285 

she is too dangerous. In the evolution of the animal 
world, declares H. W. Dresser, organs which remain 
unused ultimately disappear. From Ovid we have, — 

Video meliora proboque, 
Deteriora sequor. 

An elaborate and pompous sunset, is De Quincey's de- 
scription. During the last years of his life, Southey's 
hair which had become almost white, grew perceptibly 
darker. Bacon discovered that lukewarm water poured 
into boiling water cools it. Dr. Johnson spoke of moun- 
tains with disgust. In describing the winter at Dresden, 
Motley says, "We have had an absence of warmth rather 
than the presence of cold." Wherever I pass my sum- 
mers, says Hawthorne with much impatience, let me spend 
my winters in a cold country. Writes Milton, — 

"The first-born bloom of spring, 
Nipt with the lagging rear of winter's frost." 

Victor Hugo thought the bee did not atone, by its honey- 
making, for its sting. The rose smells sweeter after it 
is plucked, remarks James Howell. The bee and the 
spider suck, the one honey, the other poison, out of the 
same flower. It is a statement of James Howell, that 
the purer the wheat is, the more subject it is to tares, 
and the most precious gems to flaws. In 1356 the whole 
basin of the Rhine was shaken by an earthquake, which 
destroyed over eighty castles. Pope declares, that he 
does not, like some people, make his roses and daffodils 
bloom in the same season, nor cause his nightingales to 
sing in November. Henry James refers to one who was 
like a man trying, but unable, to sneeze. Amiel likens 
our life to a soap-bubble hanging from a reed. Who 
wrote this, — 



286 LITERARY BREVITIES 

" Like that which kept the heart of Eden green 
Before the useful trouble of the rain " ? 

We don't want a rose to sing, Thackeray says. Voltaire 
reminds us, that while the bile makes men choleric and 
sick, without bile they could not live. Luther observes, 
that when the wolf comes into the sheep-fold, he eats 
not any until he kills all. Heine points out, that nature, 
like a great poet, produces the greatest effects with the 
fewest materials. The same calls scents the feelings of 
flowers. To E. P. Whipple, Thoreau seemed to be a man 
who had experienced Nature as other men are said to have 
experienced religion. Unoculus inter caecos, is anony- 
mous. Mirabeau, who was twenty-eight years old at 
the beginning of his imprisonment, was two or three 
inches taller when it ended, as is stated by P. F. Willert. 
Here the nightingale sang the birth of the rose, is Wil- 
liam Beckford's. The young birds peep as the old birds 
pipe, is anonymous. The cuttle-fish looks exactly like 
the rock to which it clings. We all have five fingers, 
remarks William James, not because four or six would not 
do just as well, but merely because the first vertebrate 
above the fishes happened to have that number. Where 
there is much light, says Goethe, the shades are deepest. 
Hawthorne speaks of seeing the doves perched in full ses- 
sion. From Tasso this, — 

"The silver-mantled morning fresh appeared, 
With roses crowned, and buskined high with gold." 

G. H. Lewes thinks a thousand Ciceros insignificant in 
comparison with a law of nature. Mention is made of 
wind so strong that one might lean his back against it like 
a post. Heine thinks an ape, the nearer it resembles 
man, the more ridiculous it becomes. It is Shakspeare 
who says no one ever bathed himself twice in the same 



NATURE 287 

stream. An active, wide-awake man was sorry that na- 
ture compels us to sleep at all. George Meredith declares 
our souls to be hideously subject to the conditions of our 
animal nature. Nature never did betray the heart that 
loved her, says Wordsworth. Petrarch, who has been called 
the first modern man, is said to have been the first who 
ever climbed a mountain out of love of nature. The crow 
is everywhere equally black. The sympathetic bear, 
in brushing a fly from his master's nose, smashed the nasal 
organ to disfigurement. It has been observed, that 
nightingales don't live on songs. The throat of Jehan 
Cotard was so dry that he was never known to spit. A 
great river never murmurs, remarks Sir Thomas More. 
Ice has been called the "fifth element." It is not easy 
for a man standing on the seashore to perceive the exact 
moment when the tide begins to ebb. Time and tide 
will no man bide, is the familiar jingle. Hippocrates 
thought inspiration possible nowhere but on a mountain 
top. Victor Hugo states, that insects exist which are so 
strangely disinterested that they sting knowing that to 
sting is to die. The bite of an insect, Dumas reminds us, 
can kill a giant, if the insect be venomous. The homesick 
exile in the Vale of Tempe asked, "Where is the sea?" 
We enjoy as much in drinking, some one has observed, as 
the thirst is great. Shakspeare has the following, — 

"And almost thence my nature is imbrued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand." 

Momus found fault with the make of a man, because he 
has not a window in his breast. It is a remark of some 
one, that whatever the lion eats turns lion. 



288 LITERARY BREVITIES 

ODD SAYINGS 

SWIFT speaks of finding a needle in a pottle of 
hay. The same refers to something as likely to 
happen when the ducks have eaten up all the 
dirt. It was nuts to them, is Swift's. We are told of 
a boy who was turned out of school for truancy, and who 
promised his mother, if she would not whip him, that he 
would "experience religion." There is only a sheet of 
paper between Hell and Coatbridge, is anonymous. The 
old colored woman thought the Almighty "faithful but 
tedious." A young man was described as "resting like 
fury." What the dickens seems to have been originally 
what the "diggins." In Dr. Geddes's version of the 
Bible the passover is called the "skipover." All men 
are born free and unequal, is Grant Allen's version. 
Blushed inch-thick, is Balzac's expression. A life of 
strenuous idleness, is anonymous. The Russians say 
an experienced man is one who has eaten bread from more 
than one oven. Emerson thinks Hell has its infinite sat- 
isfactions. Don't be frightened; keep your hair on, is 
anonymous. Equus qui pellis et ossa fuit, seems to be 
old enough. Blanche Howard speaks of something that 
would make a corpse laugh. Van Dyke calls Walt Whit- 
man the "long-lined tumultuous one." Some one, 
threatening to use a certain man up, declared that the 
largest pieces left of him would be his ears. In the six- 
teenth century, to cudgel a man was to give him a wooden 
crown. Unlooked for, like the devil at prayers, is anony- 
mous. Napoleon has put the dot over the i of my life, 
is a remark of Goethe. It seems to be Swift who first de- 
clared, that angling is always to be considered a stick and 
a string, with a fly at one end and a fool at the other. 
Don't forget me to Appleton and Curtis, wrote Lowell. 



OPPORTUNITY 289 

Leigh Hunt thought it a great compliment to call a ras- 
cal a dog. The same describes an old lady as elaborately 
hideous. It was Napoleon who spoke of washing dirty 
linen at home. The sauce is worth more than the fish, is 
anonymous. Aristotle defines the ludicrous as harmless 
incongruity. It is in "Gil Bias" that we read about 
" stripping a man to his birth-day suit." Dumas declares 
nothing to be so probable as improbability. Inopem 
me copia fecit, is Ovid's. Certum est, quia impossibile est, 
is by Tertullian. 



B 



OPPORTUNITY 

ALZAC thinks that for buildings, as for men, posi- 
tion is everything. The following is from Schiller, — 

"Turn to good account 
The moment which presents itself but once." 



England were not England, Bulwer asserts, if a man must 
rest where his father began. According to Benson, Dante 
assigns the lowest place in the lower world to those who 
refuse a great opportunity. Personality, says Balzac, 
demands its appropriate atmosphere to bring out its 
values. Goethe urges the importance of not wasting a 
propitious mood. No moment in one's life comes twice, 
Balzac declares. Opportunity makes the thief, is anony- 
mous. I know, said some one to E. P. Whipple, your 
idea of a public library, if you had a million dollars. 
"If I had a million dollars," answered Whipple, "I should 
not have the idea." Euripides says darkness turns run- 
aways into heroes. Plutarch represents Hercules as 
victorious only when standing on the defensive, and wait- 
ing to be attacked. God does not give us results, de- 
clares William Black, but only opportunities. I have 



290 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the great advantage, says Goethe, of being born at a 
time when the greatest events which agitate the world 
occurred, and such have continued to occur during my 
long life; so that I am a living witness of the Seven Years' 
War, of the separation of America from England, of the 
French Revolution, and the whole Napoleon era. 

OPPOSITION 

IT is an observation of John W. Chadwick, that, given 
good courage, nothing so hurries an advancing col- 
umn as a brisk fire in front. Small things stand often in 
the way of important ones, anonymous. Praise ener- 
vates, flattery poisons, says Howells; but a smart brisk 
snub is always rather wholesome. 

PAIN 

PAINFUL sensations increase, declares H. W. 
Dresser, when we dwell upon them. Balzac 
says pain is a touch that throws light on life. 
Suffering, asserts Dresser, is intended to make man think. 
The same again calls pain beneficent, the most beneficent 
of all nature's arrangements, the best evidence of the 
unceasing presence of a resident restorative power. Suf- 
fering exalts all things, Balzac thinks. Singing like a 
nightingale with his breast against a thorn, author un- 
known. Some one has the fortitude to assert, that life 
properly lived is worth living, and would be even if a 
malevolent fate had decreed that one should suffer, say, 
the pangs of toothache two hours out of every twenty- 
four. There is always a pain attached to every pleas- 
ure, Victor Hugo would have us believe. 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 291 

PARALLELISMS AND FAMILIAR SAYINGS 

ROBERT BURTON assures us, that as good horses 
draw in carts as in coaches. Montaigne has a 
beautiful simile on the way an author collects materials 
from various sources and moulds them by his genius 
into what is essentially new; just as bees cull sweets 
from many flowers, but themselves after make honey, 
which is all and purely their own, and no more thyme and 
marjoram. Addison describes a letter as neither fish, 
flesh, nor good red herring. A word too much is soon 
said, is from the French. There is no such remedy 
against fear as fun, is from the same source. No man 
loves the messenger of ill, found in Sophocles, is Shak- 
speare's "Bad news infects the teller." There is such 
a thing as a man's not knowing enough even to quote. 
She smiled, writes Henry James, in a way that made any 
other way of smiling than that seem a shallow grimace. 
Out of sight, out of mind, is found in Thomas a Kempis. 
Tell it to the marines, is a hint from Horace's Credat 
Judaeus Apella. Make haste slowly, is found as early as 
the time of Augustus Caesar. The burnt child dreads 
the fire, is in Ben Jonson, but probably much older. 
John Quincy Adams was called "that old man eloquent," 
a hint taken from Milton's line, "Killed with report that 
old man eloquent." No four legs will carry a dog for- 
ever, proverb. The longest lane will have a turning, 
proverb. There are beautiful prayers in Homer, that 
have much of the Old Testament spirit of invocation. 
Roman literature is to a great extent plagiarized. The 
" Ars Poetica " of Horace is said to contain but few pre- 
cepts which may not be met with in Aristotle. Ovid 
complained of the early writers for having stolen all the 
good things. It is Cervantes who reminds us, that there 



292 LITERARY BREVITIES 

is nothing cheaper than civil words. The same author 
says that, whether the pitcher hits the stone, or the stone 
hits the pitcher, it is bad for the pitcher. They desire 
the fish but fear the water, old saying. It is the same to 
him who wears a shoe, as if the whole world were covered 
with leather, author unknown. If you wish to be power- 
ful, observes Home Tooke, pretend to be powerful. George 
Eliot remarks, that the smell of the bread is sweet to 
everyone but the baker. You may start a tiger while 
beating the jungle for a deer, is anonymous. Emerson 
aptly uses a Scripture incident in declaring, that the lead- 
ing question of the times absorbs all other questions, 
just as Aaron's serpent swallowed the other serpents; 
but Pope had been there before him, as the following 

shows, — 

And hence one master passion in the breast, 

Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest." 

Virtue is its own reward, is traced back through various 
English authors as far as Izaak Walton, yet fifteen hun- 
dred years before Izaak Walton Seneca had said, "The 
conscience of well-doing is an ample reward." The 
Scripture phrase, gathering grapes from thorns, is, in 
Cervantes, expecting pears from an elm tree. There 
are several well-known sayings intended to show that 
excess is wasteful and ridiculous; such are Shakspeare's 
"gilding refined gold," and "bringing fagots to bright- 
burning Troy"; and Cervantes's "throwing water into 
the sea"; and the trite "carrying coals to Newcastle"; 
a common source for all these is found in Horace, who 
intended at first to write his poems in the Greek language, 
but the image of Quirinus appeared to him after mid- 
night, when dreams are true, reminding him that such 
a course would be as foolish as "carrying timber into a 
wood." Lucian contains the phrase "too hot and too 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 293 

heavy." At the battle of Thermopylae, when the Per- 
sians boasted that their army was so numerous that its 
arrows would conceal the sun, Leonidas replied, "So 
much the better, we shall then fight in the shade"; par- 
allel to this is the reply of Alaric to the Roman Ambas- 
sadors, "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mown." 
How often has the inspiring influence of a great crisis 
caused the man of momentous responsibility to give voice 
to a sentiment as great as the occasion. The victory of 
the fourteen hundred half -armed Swiss headed by Win- 
kelried, who grasped an armful of Austrian spears, only 
repeated a similar charge by desperate Persians at Pla- 
taea. The development theory of modern evolutionists 
is not wholly new, but has been faintly foreshadowed in 
the writings of earlier times; Butler, in " Hudibras," alludes 
to the hindlegs of the whale, which the scientists declare 
to exist as rudimentary and obsolete. It is interesting to 
study man's varied efforts in search of the origin of the 
material universe; Job's "Can'st thou find out God?" 
though an answer has been sought by millions of inquir- 
ing souls since his time, is still the supreme question of 
the speculatist. Herbert Spencer, the great exponent 
of objective reasoning, declares atheism to be illogical 
and insane; he demands that there must be an abso- 
lute, though unknowable, reality behind phenomena; 
yet declares it equally unthinkable, that God should 
have created matter out of nothing, and that matter should 
have existed from eternity. The Sioux Indians thought 
the Great Spirit made everything except the wild rice; 
but that the wild rice came by chance. The familiar 
saying, "The remedy is worse than the disease," is 
found, substantially, in Juvenal's sixteenth satire. Two 
hundred years ago, instead of ejaculating "Chestnut" 
after the recital of anything too antiquated, it was 



294 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the proper thing to remind the speaker that his joke had 
passed through several editions. As showing how peren- 
nial is the allusion to the superior virtue of primitive 
times over our own times, Aristophanes refers to "the 
good old times," when an Athenian seaman knew nothing 
more than to call for his barley cake and cry "Yo-ho." 
Calamity is man's true touchstone, is but a reproduc- 
tion of Seneca's "Fire proves gold and misery proves 
brave men." It was the physicians of the highest stand- 
ing, we are told, that most opposed Harvey; so it was 
the most experienced navigators that opposed the views 
of Columbus. The world's history teaches nothing with 
greater uniformity than that happiness is but an incident 
of life, and that nothing can assure it. The wealthy 
man of recent times who, as an experiment, tried to make 
a poor woman happy by providing her with every neces- 
sity and luxury she desired, but who found her still 
unhappy owing to the frequent screams of a neighbor's 
guinea hen, was attempting nothing new. An old Latin 
writer tells of a discontented city barber who longed for 
a life of competency as a farmer. Some one gave him a 
farm with a complete equipment; the newly-installed 
farmer soon found his position so full of care and perplex- 
ity, with the ravages of winds, rains, destructive insects, 
and unruly beasts, that he was unhappy beyond endur- 
ance; in despair, he rose at midnight, mounted his mule, 
and returned to the city. Livy tells of a mother who died 
of joy at the safe return of her son after the battle of Lake 
Trasimenus; De Quincey, in his "Revolt of the Tartars," 
relates a similar incident. In "Hudibras" we read, — 

"He who complies against his will 
Is of his own opinion still." 

The same thought is in Aristophanes. Gladstone, like 
Walter Scott, was a valiant tree-feller. Browning says, 



i 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 295 

"No rose without its thorn," and "So the thorn comes 
to the aid of and completes the rose," both being suggested 
by Milton's "without thorn the rose." We call "a spade 
a spade"; Lucian calls "a tub a tub." We have it on 
the authority of Robert Burton, that we can say nothing 
but what hath been said; the composition and method is 
ours only, and shows the scholar. Sophocles, long be- 
fore Pope, said "To err is human." Mirabeau, as well 
as Daniel O'Connell, used a friend's speech successfully 
in the Assembly, after his friend had made a failure 
with it. The " Comedy of Errors " is borrowed from Plau- 
tus, the only instance where Shakspeare has taken a 
plot from the ancients. "Damn with faint praise" is in 
Pope. Butler's morn turning from black to red, like a 
boiled lobster, is taken from Rabelais. Seneca said total 
abstinence was easier than moderation long before Dr. 
Johnson said it. Epictetus warned philosophers not to 
walk as if they had swallowed a poker. Did Sir Hum- 
phrey Davy, or Bishop Butler, originate the saying, "The 
greater the circle of light the greater the circle of dark- 
ness"? Henry Ward Beecher was wont to ridicule his 
poor mathematical abilities, by declaring that the more 
times he counted his money the less he knew how much 
he had; but he was not alone in this infelicity; Leigh 
Hunt never succeeded in mastering the multiplication 
table; Emerson said he could not multiply seven by twelve 
with impunity; it was wittily said of Burke, that he was 
as unable to add up a tailor's bill as Sheridan was to pay 
it. Goethe cautions us not to expect all qualities com- 
bined in one man; the same thought is in Homer. When 
the Spaniards burned their ships behind them in Mex- 
ico, they were imitating the Greek oligarchs at Corcyra 
four hundred years before Christ. Browning's "What 
books are in the desert," is an echo of Shakspeare's 



296 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"books in the running brooks." "Abusing the King's 
English " seems to have its origin in " Merry Wives." It 
is a familiar saying, that it is always the unexpected that 
happens; the Greek has it, "The fawn slays the lion." 
Hawthorne seldom quotes or steals from another author; 
but has the following in common with several others, 
"One success pays for a hundred disappointments." 
The rude practical joke of pulling a chair away from a 
man who is about to sit down, and causing him to sprawl 
on the floor, is recorded somewhere in Plato. The mod- 
ern "takes the cake" is, in Burton, "carries the bell 
away." Tennyson's "Theirs not to reason why" is 
Shakspeare's "My commission is not to reason of the 
deed, but do it." Calhoun's "masterly inactivity" is 
Horace's strenua inertia. It is not uncommon, when a 
diminutive youth is observed wearing a large head cov- 
ering, for some one to give utterance to the stale witti- 
cism, "Where is that hat going with that boy?" This 
is one of Cicero's old jokes; once when he saw Dolabella, 
a short man, wearing a long sword at his side, he play- 
fully asked, "Who has tied that little fellow to his 
sword?" A certain Mr. Hamilton said of Dr. Johnson, 
after a fox-chase, "Why, Johnson rides as well, for aught 
I see, as the most illiterate fellow in England"; quite in 
line with this is what the critic Sartoris said of Robert 
Browning, "I like Browning, he isn't at all like a d — d 
literary man." From Job we have, "Oh that mine adver- 
sary had written a book"; also, "one in a thousand." 
When the frightened boatmen were rowing him across 
the Adriatic, the foremost man of all this world quieted 
them with, "You carry Caesar"; something parallel 
to this is related of William Ruf us of England, who ordered 
the mariners to set sail regardless of the storm, assuring 
them that no king had ever been known to be drowned. 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 297 

Bacon quotes Lucretius and Thackeray quotes both, 
in "watching the waves tossing in the wind, and the 
struggles of others at sea." The expression "bang up" 
is found in Scott. Johnson's " Vanity of Human Wishes " 
is thought by some to be superior to the "Tenth Satire" 
of Juvenal, which it imitates. The new-born babe might 
comprehend it, is in iEschylus. Euripides, twenty cen- 
turies before Disraeli, originated the saying, that the un- 
foreseen always comes to pass. Bryant's "Truth crushed 
to earth shall rise again," seems to be an echo from what 
Livy calls an old saw, Veritatem laborare nimis saepe, aiunt, 
exstingui nunquam. In Smollett may be found, — "A 
fool and his money are soon parted," "too thin," 
"Charity begins at home," "afraid of his bacon," "room 
enough to swing a cat," "got in the wrong box," "for 
love or money," "rule the roast," and "The moon is made 
of green cheese." That the soul is dyed by the thoughts 
is the saying of Seneca; but Sophocles had said, "Bad 
desires corrupt the fairest minds." "Blind as a bat" is 
in the "Odyssey." Tempering justice with mercy, Mil- 
ton owes to Shakspeare. Just as Cervantes was driven 
to the writing of prose by the success of Lope de Vega, 
so Scott was turned from poetry to prose by the rising 
fame of Byron; as a fortunate consequence, we have 
" Don Quixote " and the " Waverley Novels." What evil 
means acquire is seldom kept, is an observation of Sopho- 
cles; which suggests, "What is got over the devil's back, 
etc." Webster's "sea of upturned faces" is found in 
Scott. Priests are only men, Browning remarks; bishops 
are made out of men, says Bulwer. Cervantes compares 
a translation to the reverse side of tapestry. Charles V, 
like Diocletian, resigned the crown for the felicity of pri- 
vate life. The Texan congressman said, "Where was I 
at?" We find in Browning's poems, "Where did I break 



298 LITERARY BREVITIES 

off at?" How hard it is to forgive those we have 
injured, in the Spanish proverb runs, "The offender never 
pardons." Horse of another color, is, with Scott, pears of 
another tree. The following is from Tasso, — 

"She thought to strike the iron that was hot; 
For every action hath its hour of speeding." 

His hand will be against every man, and every man's 
hand against him, is found in Genesis. As old as Adam, 
is, in the Greek, as old as Iapetus. It is a remark of Sen- 
eca, that the corruption of the present time is the com- 
plaint of all time. Johnson's "Hell is paved with good 
intentions" is found in Herbert's works of a century ear- 
lier. The Scripture account of the safe passage of the 
Israelites through the Red Sea is paralleled in the early 
traditions of Macedonia, a river taking the place of the 
sea. In Butler's "Hudibras" is found, — 

"And little quarrels often prove 
To be but new recruits of love." 

Sophocles wrote, "Jove is yet in heaven"; and Browning, 

"God's in his heaven: 
All's right with the world." 

In for a penny, in for a pound, appears in "Guy Man- 
nering." In Lucian appears, "as like as two peas." G. W. 
Moon seems to be copying Michelangelo in saying that 
trifles make perfection, though perfection is no trifle. Nan 
cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum, is from Horace. 
Pope's "Essay on Man" is but a reproduction of the phi- 
losophy of Bolingbroke and Leibnitz. Cimmerian dark- 
ness dates back to Homer. The proverbial disagreement 
of doctors and the expression, "worth his weight in gold," 
are both to be found in Plato. Goethe's "There is no 
pause at perfection," is, in substance, Difficilis in perfecto 
mora est, found in " Velleius Paterculus." Wasting sweet- 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 299 

ness on the desert air, is in Lucian. Aristotle says of 
Homer, "In the image of man created he God." Too 
much of a good thing, is in Shakspeare. There's no lid so 
poor but finds its pot, old proverb. Smollett speaks of an 
excuse that will not hold water. Shakspeare, through 
the mouth of Polonius, imitates Aristophanes in this, — 

"Hast thou not seen a cloud, which thou couldst fancy 
Shaped like a centaur, leopard, wolf or bull?" 

Ne sutor ultra crepidam, is a saying of Apelles. After us 
the deluge, was what Madame de Pompadour used to 
say to Louis XV. It was Sir Humphrey Gilbert who 
thought we were as near heaven by sea as by land. The 
motto of Peter the Great was, "I am a learner:" Mon- 
taigne contains, "The burnt child dreads the fire." 
Browning this, "You had brained me with a feather." 
Scott this, "It's ill waiting for dead men's shoon." Shak- 
speare is said to contain over five hundred quotations, 
sentiments, or allusions taken from the Bible. Homer 
says never man knew his own father; compare Shak- 
speare's "It's a wise father, etc." The golden mean, 
found in all literatures, is thus in Homer, "Best it is to 
take the middle way." Virgil's Haec olim meminisse 
iuvabit is copied from the " Odyssey." Balzac's "Years of 
suffering cannot outweigh one hour of love," has been, 
in substance, said by Browning, Tennyson, and many 
others. Le Sage's character thought it better to be near 
the church, however far from God. The same Le Sage 
would "tell the truth by way of variety"; have "the rec- 
tor and his curate say grace in the same key"; and have 
"one not carry principle to any dangerous extent." Mon- 
tesquieu, speaking of the diminutive Republic of San 
Marino, uses the expression, "tempest in a teacup." 
Burton would set a candle in the sun. Where the shoe 



300 LITERARY BREVITIES 

pinches is, in the Latin, Nescio ubi soccus urat. Shakspeare 

calls life a shuttle. Francis I, when taken prisoner by 

Charles V, sent this message to his mother, "All is lost 

save honor." It was Louis XIV who said, " I am the 

state." Milton is copying Virgil's Descensus Averno in 

what follows, — „ T . ., 

Long is the way 

And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light." 

Plunging oneself up to the neck in water to save oneself 
from the rain is in imitation of some animals that go into 
the water to save themselves from getting wet. To 
love and win, declares Thackeray, is the best thing; to 
love and lose is the next best. All the following are 
from Shakspeare: "Delays have dangerous ends"; 
"I owe her little duty and less love"; "Burn her, hanging 
is too good"; "I'll bring the head with sorrow to the 
ground"; "dead as a door nail"; "For both of you are 
birds of self -same feather"; "The short and the long 
is"; "bag and baggage"; "crow of the same nest"; 
"I'll not budge an inch"; "There's small choice in rot- 
ten apples"; "a little pot and soon hot"; "as fat as 
butter"; "Tell the truth and shame the devil"; "He 
hath eaten me out of house and home." Nelson's "A 
crown or else a glorious tomb" is somewhat like Shak- 
speare's, "My crown is in my heart, not on my head"; 
and the same thought is in the "Anabasis." Shakspeare's 
"neat, not gaudy," was evidently a hint for Pope's, 
"plain but not sordid; though not splendid, clean." 
Tennyson's "a sight to make an old man young," is as 
follows in Shakspeare, — 

"A withered hermit, five-score winters worn, 
Might shake off fifty looking in her eyes." 

In the two foregoing passages, both Tennyson and Shak- 
speare seem to have before their eyes Homer's picture of 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 301 

Helen and the old men on the wall of Troy. In "the 
wife the weaker vessel," Shakspeare has in view a pas- 
sage from the New Testament. No man is great all the 
time, asserts Elbert Hubbard. Hawthorne calls patriot- 
ism a noble weakness. Landor's "Gales that refresh us 
while they propel us forward," is like something in "Ju- 
nius." Aristophanes speaks of swallowing Euripides whole, 
very much as we speak of swallowing the dictionary. 
With Luther, taking the bull by the horns is taking the 
goose by the neck. Luther declares, that God suffered 
David to fall so horribly, lest he should become too 
haughty. Shakspeare, in his "web of our life," philoso- 
phizes in a similar way. It is in Aristotle we are told, 
that one swallow does not make a spring. In Shakspeare's 
" Measure for Measure," Master Barnardine would not get 
up to be hanged; Lucian has something like this in his 
"Dialogues of the Dead," concerning a man who, rather 
than do some disagreeable thing, would sooner come to life 
again. Murder will out, is in Chaucer; so is, "to maken 
virtue of necessite." Art is long and time is fleeting, 
the familiar line of Longfellow, is, in Chaucer, "The lyfe 
is short, the craft so long to lerne." Browning contains 
"cock of the roost," and "rules the roast"; also "to tell 
cheese from chalk." The usual "piling Ossa above Pelion," 
is, in Horace, " placing Pelion above the dark Olympus"; 
while Browning has it, "Ossa piled topping Olym- 
pus"; see the "Odyssey." Cowper, in his "God made the 
country, and man made the town," copies the Roman 
Varro, Divina natura agros, ars humana aedificavit urbes. 
"Do unto others as they would like to do unto you — and 
do it first," is an unholy paraphrase of the Golden Rule. 
Following are a few brevities from Cervantes: "Had a face 
like any benediction"; "to throw water into the sea"; 
"spending one's time fishing for mushrooms at the bottom 



302 LITERARY BREVITIES 

of the sea"; "how to catch white ermine "; "While there 
is life there is hope " ; and "Rome was not built in a day." 
Samuel Butler tells of a patient who swallowed the written 
prescription. Some poet, to justify his flight at Cher- 
onea, wrote, "He who flees may fight again"; which an- 
other poet paraphrased thus, "The man who flees once 
will flee again." The fierce orator Labienus was called 
"Rabienus." Misfortunes never come single, is in " Paul 
and Virginia." An ass with golden furniture, remarks 
Cervantes, makes a better figure than a horse with a pack- 
saddle. As Shakspeare contains all the "old saws" 
common at his time, so Browning has enshrined in his 
verse whatever wise and quaint proverbial sayings had 
accumulated since Shakspeare's time. Browning has, 
"Life's short, learning hard"; also "Far go, fare worse." 
It is the belief of La Rochefoucauld, that in the adversity 
of our best friends we always find something which is 
not wholly displeasing to us; the same thought is elegantly 
expressed by iEschylus, — "How hard it is to honor a 
friend's success without a touch of envy." Wesley's 
"Cleanliness is next to godliness" is found in Bacon. 
"The King's English" is Shakspeare's. From Brown- 
ing we have, to match Tennyson's "better to have loved 
and lost," the following, — 

"Once to have loved is no matter for scorning; 
Love once — e'en love's disappointment endears; 
A minute's success pays the failures of years." 

Ben Jonson, speaking of Bacon as an orator, remarks, 
that the fear of every man was lest he should make an 
end, which is an accurate translation from the Latin — 
Nemo non, Mo dicente, timebat ne desineret. Bruce, 
in having his horse shod backwards, is repeating the 
experiment Hercules tried with his oxen. In calling 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 303 

Washington the Father of his country, we are imitating 
Juvenal's line, Roma patrem patriae Ciceronem libera 
dixit. Trouble for their pains, is Browning's. Walter 
Pater tells us, that by tasting a little we are ascertained 
of the quality of the whole cask; the same had been said 
already by others. It is Thomas Warburton who speaks 
of getting a Roland for an Oliver. Dryden's advice to 
poets, that they make haste gently, is but the Latin, 
Festina lente. Going to the dogs, is in Aristophanes. 
Like a fish out of water, is in Chaucer thus, — 

"A monk, when he is cloysterless, 
Is likened to a fische that is waterless." 

Virgil's "Descensus Averno" is quoted from Ennius. 
The native Africans match our "out of the frying pan 
into the fire," with "He fled from the sword and hid in 
the scabbard." Dr. John Donne's line, "She and compar- 
isons are odious," is, in Cervantes, "Comparisons of all 
kinds, whether as to sense, courage, beauty, or rank, 
are always offensive." Goethe paraphrases the New 
Testament, in saying that he who lives to save his life 
is already dead. In the New Testament it is written, 
"Evil communications corrupt good manners," which 
Menander said three hundred years before Christ. The 
injunction against returning evil for evil is found in Plato. 
Virgil's steering between Scylla and Charybdis, is, in 
Horace, "The wolf threatens you on this side, the dog on 
that." Chaucer speaks of "a foul shepherd and clean 
sheep"; but Boccaccio had enjoined, "Do as we say, 
not as we do," as if it were possible for the sheep to have 
more resolution than the shepherd. Pope's familiar 
hymn, "Vital spark of heavenly flame," is an extended 
translation of the dying sentiment of the Emperor Ha- 
drian. Solomon's "Spare the rod and spoil the child," 



304 LITERARY BREVITIES 

is, in the Greek proverb, "The human being who has 
never had a hiding is uneducated." A recent writer 
assures us, that a secret is half told when we have told 
that we have a secret; Goethe says that whoever wishes 
to keep a secret must hide from us that he possesses one. 
The beautiful speech of Prospero, in " The Tempest," "The 
cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces," is declared 
by Dowden to resemble closely something in an earlier 
drama of the Earl of Sterling; but to take even this bril- 
liant gem from the measureless treasures of Shakspeare 
does not impoverish that incomparable poet in the least. 
It is simply an illustration of the mathematical principle, 
that taking a finite quantity from infinity does not make 
infinity less. It's an old proverb, that the wise may be 
instructed by a fool. Henry James asserts, that while 
there is no smoke without fire, there may be fire without 
smoke. Emerson quotes from over eight hundred authors; 
Dr. Holmes has collected more than three thousand of 
these quotations. According to the proverb, the older 
the crab-tree, the more crabs it bears. It was a saying 
of the Chinese, that they saw with two eyes, the Latins 
with one, and that all other nations were blind. Shak- 
speare calls discretion the better part of valor, but Eurip- 
ides had said, "Discretion is valor." "Thou art the 
man," is from Second Samuel. "First in war, first in 
peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens," is 
the way Light-horse Harry Lee pronounced it. "From 
the frying pan into the fire, " is, in the ancient Greek, 
"from the smoke into the fire itself." Wordsworth's 
"Vast is the circumference of hope" is Pope's "Hope 
springs eternal in the human breast." Montaigne seems 
to have been the originator of, "No man is a hero to his 
valet de chambre"; it is also found in Hegel, Goethe, 
Carlyle, and Emerson. In "Pilgrim's Progress" is found, 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 305 

"Every tub must stand on its own bottom." Instead of 
"hearing a pin drop," George Eliot has, "hearing the flight 
of a fly." Buckle's remark, that there is no protection 
against the tyranny of any class but in giving that class 
very little power, is a thought that is found in Plato's 
"Laws." Dr. Johnson declares, that we can never refuse 
to any modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer. 
Landor imitates Goethe's "High on the sculptured frieze 
the swallow builds"; so does Longfellow in one of his son- 
nets preluding the " Divine Comedy." Whately remarks, 
that an old man rises early because he had gone to bed 
early; and that he goes to bed early because he had risen 
early. Who was the first to say, "The remedy is worse 
than the disease"? it is in Bacon, and can be traced as 
far as Juvenal's "Sixteenth Satire." "If gold rust, what 
should iron do," may be safely called Chaucer's own. 
Tasso's "Lowest falls attend the highest flights," is echoed 
in Shakspeare. As parallel to Young's "Blessings 
brighten as they take their flight," Browning writes, — 

"'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day 
Beside you, and lie down at night by you, 
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, 
And all at once they leave you, and you know them." 

G. W. Moon calls a weak defense a strong admission. A 
fast, declares Montaigne, is as good as a feast to him 
who loves fish. Balzac observes, that worms are in the 
finest fruits, insects attack the loveliest flowers. Sea 
widens and the coast is clear, is Browning's. As good 
luck would have it, is Shakspeare's. Quod non opus est 
asse carum est, is Cicero's. How blind must he be, ob- 
serves Cervantes, who cannot see through a sieve. To 
the epigram, "Never ask for public offices and never 
refuse them," Franklin adds, "Never resign them." 



306 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Franklin observes, that the worst wheel in the cart makes 
the most noise. In German, to be courteous is to lie, 
according to Goethe. Kallikrates, after the battle of 
Mithymna, is an early example of magnanimity; the 
Black Prince is a later example. Making fritters of 
English, is Shakspeare's. Whoever, in "Richard II," is 
inclined to be disgusted with John of Gaunt's play upon 
words in alluding to his own name, should be reminded 
that the same kind of a pun occurs in the "Ajax" of 
Sophocles. It is Cervantes who would not have one talk 
halters in the house of the hanged. "I've lived in clover," 
is in Browning; so also is, "easy as an old shoe." John 
Wesley's "Cleanliness is next to godliness" which is also 
found in Bacon, is as follows in the Koran, "Cleanliness is 
one half the faith." "A living dog is better than a dead 
lion," found in Ecclesiastes, La Fontaine paraphrases thus, 
"Better a beggar alive than a dead emperor." "Hon- 
esty is the best policy," made familiar by Cervantes and 
Franklin, is twenty-three centuries old, as witness this in 
Jowett's translation of Thucydides, "The true path of 
expediency is the path of right." "A bird in the hand 
is worth two in the bush," is, in Cervantes, "A sparrow in 
the hand is worth a bustard on the wing." In Madame de 
Sevigne's writings we find the familiar proverb, "Fortune 
is always on the side of the largest battalions"; Tacitus 
says, "The gods are on the side of the stronger," a senti- 
ment which Napoleon denied in the assertion, that Provi- 
dence is always on the side of the last reserve. There is an 
old Latin proverb to the effect, that it is not everyone who 
can go to Corinth; it is repeated by Horace, Rabelais, 
George Sand, and others. Fielding intimates that a certain 
man may go to heaven when the sun shines on a rainy day; 
this is akin to paying on the Greek calends. Tennyson is 
copying Moliere in the line, "Marriages are made in 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 30? 

heaven." Goldsmith and Fielding both contain "Hand- 
some is that handsome does." There is real literary 
force in the illiterate preacher's extemporaneous prayer, 
"Though we speak nonsense, God will pick out the mean- 
ing of it." Even Tupper has one thing that is immortal, 
"A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure." There 
are examples of literary parallelism which are no doubt 
coincidences; "Pilgrim's Progress" begins very much like 
the " Divine Comedy "; yet there was in Bunyan's time no 
English translation of Dante; as another instance in point, 
"Rasselas" and "Candide" are so similar in theme and 
structure, that if they had not appeared at the same time, 
their likeness, it has been claimed, would have stamped the 
later production as plagiarized. Dr. Johnson asserted, 
that everything Hume had advanced against Christian- 
ity had passed through his own mind long before Hume 
wrote. Even the originality of Sterne's "God tempers 
the wind to the shorn lamb " has been questioned by some. 
Robert Burns holds a conspicuous place among original 
writers; "Sweet Afton" and "John Anderson my Jo" 
have no borrowed look. Thackeray must have been the 
first to say, "Bravery never goes out of fashion." In 
Thomas a Kempis appears, "Of two evils the less is al- 
ways to be chosen"; this is a reflection from Cicero and 
Horace. "Death loves a shining mark," seems to be 
Young's. • "Wherever Macgregor sits is the head of the 
table," is substantially in Cervantes. "While there is 
life there is hope," comes from as far as Theocritus. In 
"Hudibras" we have, — 

"For those that fly may fight again, 
Which he can never do that's slain," 

a thought clearly in Demosthenes. Talleyrand's witti- 
cism, to the effect that language was given to conceal 



308 LITERARY BREVITIES 

one's thoughts, is suggested by a passage in Job. A 
council of war never fights, was, in substance, said by 
Bacon. The figure of falling water wearing a stone, found 
in Lucretius, dates from the Greek bucolic poet Bion of the 
third century B.C. Better late than never, is of Greek 
origin, and two thousand years old. Tennyson, in the 
line, "He makes no friend who never made a foe," imi- 
tates Young's line, "The man that makes a character 
makes foes." The plain unvarnished tale of "Othello" 
in reality belongs to iEschylus. Shakspeare's "Lions 
make leopards tame," is as follows in iEschylus, — 
"But dogs, they say, yield to the mastering wolves." 
Wordsworth's "The child is father to the man," is, in 
Milton, thus, — 

"The childhood shows the man, 
As morning shows the day." 

"Light is the task when many share the toil," found in 
the "Iliad," suggests, "Many hands make light work." 
"All is not gold that glitters," found in Chaucer, Spenser, 
Shakspeare, and Dryden, appears still earlier in the 
French of the fourteenth century. "Dying in the last 
ditch" is a saying of William of Orange of the seventeenth 
century. Dr. Johnson's "Hell is paved with good inten- 
tions," is found in the writings of Francis de Sales. "Old 
men for council, young men for war," is Hesiod's "Deeds 
belong to youth; council to the middle aged; prayer to 
old men." Shakspeare's "Out, brief candle," may 
have been suggested by Seneca's "We are kindled and 
put out." Pope's "Men are children of a larger growth," 
is, in Seneca, "Men are but children, though they have 
gray hairs." Herbert Spencer is appropriating the 
thought of Seneca, when he lays down the rule in his 
treatise on education, that we should never give a child 



PARALLELISMS AND SAYINGS 309 

anything it cries for. Murder will out, would seem to 
make its first appearance in Chaucer. Horace says, 
"Get money; if you can, honestly; if not, get it in some 
other way"; Shakspeare has the same idea. "I have 
played the fool," is in First Samuel; "Smote him under 
the fifth rib," is in Second Samuel. "Delays are dan- 
gerous," is in Dryden, Shakspeare, and Sophocles. 
Young's exquisite line, "Tired Nature's sweet restorer, 
balmy sleep," is, in Sophocles, as follows, — 

"Sleep, thou patron of mankind, 
Great physician of the mind." 

Longfellow has been severely criticised for his line, "Art 
is long and time is fleeting," because it is unquestionably 
taken from Goethe; the expression is, in fact, found in 
as many as three places in the great German's writings; 
the truth is, the thought is not even original with Geothe; 
in the fourth century B.C., Hippocrates wrote, "Life is 
short and art long." When a third-rate poet steals, he 
is called a plagiarist; when a first-rate, the appropria- 
tion is regarded as a royal prerogative. The rose, observes 
Burke, is even more beautiful before it is full blown. 
Our historian Bancroft claims kinship with the classics 
in declaring that the brightest lightning is kindled in the 
darkest clouds. Who would not like to know the wag 
who agreed to pay his debts on the "Greek Kalends"? 
or who was the first to say, "Good wine needs no bush"? 
The street gamin who says, "I can't see it in that light," 
is quoting from Fielding, who himself had borrowed it. 
Matthew Arnold's "sweetness and light" belongs to 
Swift. In Second Samuel are to be found, — "Take the 
thing to his heart," and "There shall not one hair of the 
son fall to the earth." It was Sir Edward Coke who 
called a man's house his castle. In Second Kings are 



310 LITERARY BREVITIES 

found the following, "If the prophet had bid thee do some 
great thing"; "like the driving of Jehu"; and "Both 
his ears shall tingle." In Nehemiah is found, "Gathered 
themselves together as one man." In Job are the follow- 
ing,— "Doth Job fear God for nought?" "All that 
a man hath will he give for his life"; "Man is born unto 
trouble as the sparks fly upward"; "My days are swifter 
than a post"; and "Canst thou by searching find out 
God?" In Shakspeare are the following, — "You have 
the start of me"; "I know a trick worth two of that"; 
"Everything is left at six and seven"; "Thou hast the 
odds of me"; "The word is short, but not so short as 
sweet"; and "A rotten case abides no handling." Titus, 
the Roman emperor, kept a diary of his actions, and when 
at night he found that he had performed nothing mem- 
orable, he would exclaim, Amici, diem perdidimus. To 
dine in the morning implies that one has no other dinner 
than his breakfast. "Have you fifty friends? — it is 
not enough. — Have you one enemy? — it is too much," 
Italian proverb. It has been remarked by some one, 
that he who scrubs the head of an ass wastes his soap. 
Give a dog a bad name and hang him, is everybody's. 
No one knows so well where the shoe pinches as he who 
wears it, proverb. According to Racine, he who laughs 
at morn will cry before night. It was the laughing phi- 
losopher, Democritus, who referred to the round man 
stuck in the three-cornered hole. As paraphrased by 
Sir John Finett of the time of James I, "Where the best 
man sits is the head of the table." Carlyle says, "crow 
to pluck" instead of "bone to pick." Huxley puts it, — 
"liars, d — d liars, and experts." Darwin says, "Like 
the Yankees do"; must we all eventually come to use the 
word "like" in this manner? The Russians say a man 
was born in his shirt. It was Sir James Mackintosh 



PATIENCE 311 

who charged the British House of Commons with "wise 
and masterly inactivity." Talk of the Devil, says the 
proverb, and his horns appear. Evil communications 
corrupt good manners, found in the writings of St. Paul, 
was said by Menander, who took it from Euripides. 

PASSION 

PASSION and vengeance treading to their goal, 
remarks Bulwer, can make an Elsyium a Tartarus. 
There are few passions, says Balzac, which will not turn 
base in the long run. George Meredith asserts, that the 
passions are all more or less intermittent. 

PATIENCE 

ACCORDING to Rabelais, he that has patience 
may compass anything. Time and I, says the 
Spanish proverb, against any two. Boccaccio tells us, 
that one stroke never fells an oak. Who best can suffer, 
states Milton, best can do. We are informed, that Bal- 
zac would often spend an hour in burnishing a sentence. 
It is a Gascon saying, that everything comes to him who 
knows how to wait. Francis Parkman would have us 
believe, that patient industry need never doubt its reward. 
It is Shakspeare's admonition, that he that will have a 
cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding. What 
is long in coming, observes Lessing, is good when it comes. 
This from Shakspeare, — 

"She sat like patience on a monument, 
Smiling at grief." 

Dumas affirms, that the greatest, the strongest, the most 
skilful, is he who knows how to wait. Dr. Young de- 



312 LITERARY BREVITIES 

clares, that patience and resignation are the pillars of 
human peace on earth. The fisherman, found at the 
same place morning and evening, was asked if he had had 
any success; "No," he replied, "but in the course of the 
day I have had a glorious nibble." Nullum est maius 
malum quam non posse ferre malum, says Seneca. Who 
hath endured the whole, observes Spenser, can bear each 
part. The longest lane will have a turning, is anony- 
mous. The following is from iEschylus, — 

"And like a ship with all its anchors out, 
I must abide the storm." 

Some one thinks silence the best nurse of strength. When 
in trouble and gloom, the happy application of some one 
advises, "Cast four anchors out of the stern and wait 
for day." 

PATRIOTISM 

FROM Horace we have, Dulce et decorum est pro 
patria mori. In the nearly equal fight between the 
British Boxer and the American Enterprise, an officer 
of the latter, despairing of the engagement, proposed 
hauling down the Stars and Stripes, when a common 
sailor threatened to cut him in pieces if he did it. It 
is recorded by J. A. Symonds, that Michelangelo went 
on modeling and hewing through the sack of Rome, the 
fall of Florence, the decline of Italian freedom, with 
scarce a word to prove the anguish of his patriot soul. 
The English sailor, says Emerson, times his oar to "God 
save the King." When it was suspected that the com- 
mander of a United States revenue cutter was about to 
turn his vessel over to the Confederates, General Dix 
telegraphed his famous order, "If any man attempts to 
haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." 



PATRIOTISM 313 

General Robert E. Lee's son served as a private in the 
Confederate army. It was a law of Athens, that the 
children of patriots slain in battle should be supported 
at public expense. The American Continental Congress 
had in it one traitor, Galloway. Who can presume, asks 
Goethe, to analyze that inexplicable feeling which binds 
the person born in a mountain country to his native hills? 
It is a remark of Turgenieff, that any man's country can 
get along without him, but no man can get along without 
his country. Sir Philip Sidney said he would rather be 
charged with lack of wisdom than of patriotism. Time's 
noblest empire is the last, is Bishop Berkeley's. Pure 
hearts, remarks Balzac, have a fatherland in heaven. 
The Delphic oracle sometimes lost influence with the 
Greeks by being unpatriotic, as happened in the time of 
the Persian wars. Dante declares, that in the last circle 
of Hell those " who have betrayed their native country are 
punished by being entombed in a sea of everlasting ice." 
A Scotchman of poetic turn presented some verses to 
Lord Halifax for his approval; the verses contained this 
line, "The southern blast was so bitter cold"; said Hal- 
ifax, "You mean the northern blast." "Faith and 
truth," said the Scotchman, "and I did mean the north- 
ern, and did e'en write it, my laird, but I thought i' my 
conscience it ill beseemed me to leave an immortal reflax- 
ion on ma ain mither country." The Athenians buried 
their dead at Marathon on the field in recognition of 
their pre-eminent valor. The colors taken at Blenheim 
and hanging in Westminster Hall, rendered it impossible 
for the schoolboy, who had seen them, to sleep. Sir 
Roger de Coverley never allowed anyone to row in his 
barge who had not lost an arm or a leg in the Queen's 
service. Our celebrations and holidays have much to 
do with war, — evidently in recognition of the fact that the 



314 LITERARY BREVITIES 

greatest human sacrifice is the offering of one's life. Mrs. 
Spencer, the mother-in-law of James Russell Lowell, 
retained so much of the Tory spirit of her father, that 
she used to close the shutters and put crape on her knocker 
every Fourth of July. Who in the world, Tacitus asks, 
would live in this wretched place, unless it were his native 
land? When the Guerriere was captured, there were 
found on board ten American sailors who had refused to 
fight. There is no misery, states Euripides, that doth 
surpass the loss of fatherland. There is an age, Balzac 
affirms, when a man's fairest mistress is his country. 
Balzac speaks of one whose memories of her dead chil- 
dren were like the headstones on a battlefield, which you 
can scarcely see for the flowers that have sprung up about 
them since. Hawthorne thought New England as big 
a lump of earth as he could hold in his heart. Balzac 
insists that there are very few Englishmen who will not 
maintain, that gold and silver are better in England than 
elsewhere. Bismarck's two sons, one seventeen and the 
other twenty-one years of age, served as privates in the 
campaign that resulted in the surrender of the French 
at Sedan; no favoritism was shown them in the way of 
promotion. When Lincoln made his last speech, on 
the evening of April 3, he called upon the band to play 
"Dixie," "now our property as it has been fairly cap- 
tured." It has been asserted, that of all sentiments 
patriotism is perhaps one of those least amenable to rea- 
son. John Wesley's wife, for a while, secretly, was in 
sympathy with the exiled king. Hawthorne thinks it 
remarkable that so many of the ablest orators in the 
British parliament were favorable to America at the time 
of our Revolution. Sainte-Beuve states, that the cour- 
age which undertakes wise and just things for the public 
good is a special gift of God. It is remarked by Victor 



PERFECTION 315 

Hugo, that the man who fights against his own country- 
is never a hero. Louis XI thought there was no perfume 
to match the scent of a dead traitor. All countries are 
a wise man's home, says Samuel Butler. Loyalty is, 
in the English, declares Emerson, a sub-religion. A cer- 
tain patriot was declared to be more loyal than the king. 
During the war between Japan and China, men of the 
former nation were known to kill themselves on being 
refused the opportunity to do military service. To Les- 
sing, patriotism seemed at best to be a heroic weakness, 
of which he willingly disembarrassed himself. Kipling 
would never argue with a man who abused his own coun- 
try. My life is grafted on the fate of Rome, is a line 
from Addison. Burke called patriotism the cheap de- 
fense of nations. 

PERFECTION 

IF we had nothing to pardon or to be pardoned, Landor 
remarks, we might appear more perfect than we are. 
It is an observation of St. Augustine, that the true per- 
fection of a man is to find out his own imperfections. 
Seneca asserts, that every man has his weak side. The 
following is Browning's, — 

"Nothing mars 
Work, else praiseworthy, like a bodily flaw 
I' the worker." 

Aristotle compares a good man to a cube, which is the 
emblem of perfection. Beaconsfield liked a man who 
could do only one thing, but did that well. Much yet 
remains unsung, is anonymous. 



316 LITERARY BREVITIES 

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 

MANY historic personages have been made ill by 
roses, even painted ones. Ellen Terry said it 
was never any pleasure to Irving to see the acting of other 
artists. George Sand observed of a certain one, that he 
was dull, like all handsome men. He is so natural that 
everyone calls him affected, anonymous. No general, 
we are informed, ever required so little sleep as Julius 
Caesar. Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death, 
is Pope's. Rembrandt declared, that while at work he 
would not give audience to the greatest monarch on earth. 
Macaulay said of Horace Walpole, "The conformation 
of his mind was such, that whatever was little seemed 
to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him 
little." Motley writes concerning Macaulay, — "He 
has exactly that kind of face and figure which by no 
possibility would be selected, out of even a very small 
number of persons, as those of a remarkable personage; 
his conversation is the perfection of the commonplace." 
The height of Charles Sumner was six feet four. Napoleon 
never liked to be called Bonaparte, preferring Napoleon. 
Napoleon could never learn to dance. Scott, Byron, 
and Talleyrand were all club-footed. Dante had a te- 
nacious memory and was fond of music. Mad Anthony 
Wayne preferred the bayonet to the musket, because it 
is always loaded. Demosthenes liked walking alone. 
The elder Pliny always took excerpts from the books he 
read. When Garfield was nearing his end, a friend said 
to him, "Every American feels the deepest sympathy 
for you." "Sympathy with/ 9 said Garfield. Balzac, 
like Goethe, detested tobacco; he never carried with him 
money or a watch. Goethe was an almost oppressively 
handsome man. Hazlitt remarks, that Bentham listens 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 317 

to nothing but facts. Rienzi, Cromwell, and Richelieu 
were all easily moved to tears. Franklin and Lincoln 
were alike, in that something was always putting them 
in mind of a story. Cardinal Newman had an extraordi- 
nary gift for remembering faces and names. Macaulay 
could never see that there are two sides to a question; 
he was not athletic, and was wont to walk the street read- 
ing a book. Byron could not endure seeing women eat. 
Like Isaac Newton, Scott needed a great deal of sleep. 
Scott did not like Dante; he refused to ride or drive on 
Sunday, believing that the dumb animals needed a 
seventh day of rest. Scott disliked walking through beau- 
tiful natural scenery in company with botanists and geol- 
ogists. Jefferson strenuously opposed dueling; he called 
himself a farmer, hated cities, and discouraged manufac- 
tures. Locke, when a boy, was not good at games, and 
was unpopular at school. From nature and the force 
of habit, Johnson, at some time or other, said harsh 
things about everybody, Garrick possibly being an excep- 
tion. Every one, says R. L. Stevenson, sees life in his 
own way. A stammering man is rarely a worthless one. 
Whatever I do, declares Landor, I must do in the open 
air or in the silence of the night. Tom Tyers once said 
to Johnson, "You are like a ghost; you never speak till 
you are spoken to." Napoleon loved old coats and old 
hats, evidently thinking that an actively working brain 
is impatient of the pressure of a strange head covering. 
Alexander never learned to swim. Julius Caesar used to 
scratch his head with one finger. Heine never smoked. 
St. Bernard, after journeying all day by Lake Geneva, was 
asked how he enjoyed the lake. "Lake," he replied, "what 
lake?" Gladstone was a great walker; he objected to 
riding in a coach, because he could not read when travel- 
ing in one. What the nation likes in Palmerston is his 



318 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"you be-d — dness," remarked by some one. Disraeli 
says Socrates did not blush to play with children. Curse 
me, said Richardson, if I can bear to look at myself in 
the glass. Homer's heroes, with the possible exception 
of Ulysses, were esteemed for their bodily strength and 
beauty. Goethe thinks determination and perseverance 
are the things most deserving of honor and respect in 
man. Alexander and Bonaparte were of the same stat- 
ure. Landor calls George Washington the greatest hero 
in the noble galaxy; and says concerning him, — "He 
had a large hand, which is an excellent sign; assassins 
have small hands; Napoleon had a small hand." Says 
Bismarck, — "One can afford to be gruff only to one's 
friends, being convinced that they won't take it ill; how 
much sharper, for instance, one is with one's own wife 
than with other ladies." Washington and Lincoln, 
the two all-round greatest Americans, were physically 
big men. He is one of those rare men who, after we have 
met them, make us think of them again, anonymous. 
Bulwer thinks every man has his favorite sin. Carlyle 
describes a certain duke as having a face consisting of 
much nose. Gibbon asserts, that it is the first aim of the 
reformer to prevent any future reformation. Do you 
recollect whether Byron's right or left foot was the de- 
formed one? asks Hawthorne. We are told, that no one 
ever saw Emerson run. Dr. Johnson has been charged 
with an inadequate appreciation of cleanliness. We 
are told of a man so pious that he would not cough on 
Sunday. Balzac alludes to a man who, like many another 
genius, disliked the art in which he excelled. Observes 
Wordsworth, "You always went from Burke with your 
mind filled; from Fox with your feelings excited; and 
from Pitt with wonder at his having the power to make 
the worse appear the better reason." According to Ju- 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE 319 

nius, it is the middle compound character which is alone 
vulnerable, — the man who, without firmness enough to 
avoid a dishonorable action, has feeling enough to be 
ashamed of it. Haydon remarks, that Nelson had the 
power, which all great men have, of making others in his 
society forget their own inferiority; that no one in his 
presence lost his self-respect. Madame de Stael, who 
had met and talked with Coleridge, was asked how she 
liked him; to which interrogatory she replied, "For 
a monologue, excellent; but as to dialogue — good 
heavens!" Mrs. Siddons could act Lady Macbeth 
twenty nights, and vary her performance each night. 
Lorenzo de' Medici was wholly wanting of the sense of 
smell. Dean Swift did not hesitate to play cards for 
money. Swift was said to have the singular knack of 
putting his worst foot forward. The same declared, that 
he wrote so plaguy little he could not see it himself. 

PERSONAL INFLUENCE 

IT was Cobden's faculty, that he could learn something 
from everybody, observes McCarthy. A young 
girl said of her over-good aunt, "Upon my word, she's 
enough to make anyone wicked." Learn how to live by 
studying the lives of others, emulating their virtues and 
shunning their faults. Dumas asserts, that a man who 
had talked ten minutes with Cardinal Richelieu was no 
longer the same man. When the Abbot throws the dice, 
says Luther, the whole convent will play. Parva saepe 
scintilla contempta magnum excitavit incendium, is from 
Curtius. A beautiful life, declares Balzac, is more power- 
ful than the strongest argument. Man, says Disraeli, 
is mimetic; we repeat without thought the opinions of 
some third person, who has adopted them without inquiry. 



320 LITERARY BREVITIES 

We are warned, that it destroys one's nerves to be ami- 
able every day to the same human being. The studious 
man's example, notwithstanding his seclusion, is provo- 
cative of studiousness in all who know him. An amiable 
clergyman of high character and exemplary life, preaches 
to more than those who attend his church. Fielding 
calls a good man a standing lesson to all his acquaintances. 
When Thurlow Weed expressed to Lincoln a fear that 
the latter was making a mistake in putting into his cab- 
inet four former Democrats as against three Whigs, "You 
seem to forget," said Lincoln, "that I expect to be there." 
It is remarked by Swift, that it is not the shepherd, but 
the sheep with the bell, which the flock follows. Bad 
examples sometimes produce the reverse of themselves. 
The danger of association with coarse people, it has been 
said, is that we may fall into their ways to protect our- 
selves. 

PHILOSOPHY 

TW. HIGGINSON describes the Concord Summer 
School of Philosophy as plenty of summer, some- 
thing of philosophy, and very little school. , Schopenhauer 
thought that of all possible worlds, that which exists is 
the worst; Leibnitz, on the other hand, thought it the 
best possible. Aristotle observes, that a carpenter and 
a rhetorician examine a right angle with different views. 
It was Plato's belief, that God and matter have existed 
from all eternity. Those philosophers were called Cynics 
who, like Diogenes, rather barked than declaimed against 
the vices and manners of their age. According to Amiel, 
the philosopher addresses himself to a few rare minds. 
Put trust in ideas, says Emerson, and not in circumstances; 
it is the ground we do not tread upon that supports us. 
Balzac does not wish to contradict philosophers and legis- 



PHILOSOPHY 321 

lators, for they are fully able to contradict themselves. 
Aristotle denied the existence of innate ideas. The study 
of philosophy, thinks George Sand, destroys prejudice. 
Justin McCarthy observes sarcastically, that the bulk of 
a population is not made up of moral philosophers. Hume 
asserts, that the most refined and philosophic sects are 
constantly the most intolerant. There is no absurdity so 
great, as Cicero thinks, that it may not be spoken by some 
one of the philosophers. Cicero confessed that, although he 
had translated Plato's "Timaeus," he could never under- 
stand that mysterious dialogue. It is a pithy remark of 
the pedagogical writer, John Adams, that no work on 
philosophy is complete without a preliminary refutation 
of Locke, and an up-to-date sneer at Spencer. It has been 
well said, that psychology is no more bound to begin by 
telling what mind is, than physics is obliged to start by 
settling the vexed question as to what matter is. Emerson 
declares, that the notions of the nature of God which 
Socrates entertained were infinitely more correct and 
adequate than those of any other philosopher before him 
whose opinions have come down to us. Emerson, in 
speaking of the idealism which denies the existence of 
matter, asks, "What difference does it make, whether 
Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image 
in the firmament of the soul?" Wundt states, that when 
we are tasting we are smelling at the same time. On the 
same authority we are informed, that Plato was the first 
among the Greeks to separate mind from body. Landor 
observes, that we may receive so much light as not to see; 
and so much philosophy as to be worse than foolish. 
Heine says the serpent, six thousand years before Hegel's 
birth, promulgated the whole Hegelian philosophy. It 
was a saying of Seneca, that Plato dignified philosophy, 
not by his birth, but by his goodness. May Sinclair speaks 



322 LITERARY BREVITIES 

of certain fellows who come up from Oxford with wet 
towels round their heads to keep the metaphysics in. J. 
W. Chadwick declares the essential principle of transcen- 
dentalism to be — that there are elements in knowledge 
which transcend experience. Madame Roland thought it 
better to be acquainted with the writings of a philosopher 
than his person. It is an observation of W. W. Story, that 
vengeance outlasts friendship, and sorrow cuts deeper 
than joy. Coleridge's system of philosophy makes the 
senses out of the mind; Locke's makes the mind out of the 
senses. We know we are free, and there's an end on't, 
says Dr. Johnson. It is the belief of Huxley, that no 
induction, however broad its basis, can confer certainty. 
Only one absolute certainty is possible to man, namely, 
that at any given moment the feeling which he has exists, 
that all other so-called certainties are beliefs of greater or 
less intensity. It is in philosophy as in love, Landor 
remarks, the more we have of it and the less we talk about 
it the better. It was a part of Bishop Butler's doctrine, 
that probability is the guide of life. Schelling thought the 
philosophy of Fichte was like lightning; that it appeared 
only for a moment, but it kindled a fire which will burn 
forever. Birrell thinks the world is often wiser than any 
philosopher. Bishop Berkeley's celebrated doctrine is, 
that apart from a conscious mind nothing has any real 
existence in or of itself. "Endure and abstain" was the 
key-note of the later stoicism of Epictetus. According 
to E. J. Payne, the sum total of rational metaphysics has 
been held to consist in but two propositions; the first, 
which is involved in the Cogito, ergo sum, of Descartes, 
may be expressed as, "Here I am"; the second as, "I did 
not put myself here." 



PITY 323 

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 

WASHINGTON'S height was six feet two; his 
hands and feet were of enormous size. Lincoln's 
height was over six feet three. The Carlyles all had big 
heads. Webster and Clay each wore a 7f hat. Emerson 
wore a small hat, but his head was two stories high. 

PITY 

MATTHEW HALE, when he found himself inclined 
to pity a criminal, did not allow himself to forget 
that there was likewise a pity due the country. Landor 
remarks, that the voice of a beggar has often more effect 
upon us than his distress. Heine has noticed that when 
one gets soundly thrashed in Germany, he can always 
count on the pity of the multitude. Balzac asserts, that 
for some natures pity is the deadliest of insults. Lessing 
accounts him the best man who feels pity most readily and 
most abundantly. When the vestals in ancient Rome met 
on their way a malefactor being led to death, they had the 
right to pardon him, and the poor wretch was allowed to 
live. When Wurmser surrendered at Mantua, Napoleon, 
being unwilling to witness the humiliation of his defeated 
foe, absented himself from the scene. Pity keeps the 
wound open, Landor observes. Pindar declares envy to 
be a nobler fate than to be pitied. Some wag has proposed 
sweeping the chimney by pulling a live goose down through 
it; but suggests, if one has too much pity for the goose 
that he take two ducks. 



324 LITERARY BREVITIES 

PLAGIARISM 

BROWNING indignantly exclaims, "Tennyson sus- 
pected of plagiarism! Why, you might as well 
suspect the Rothschilds of picking pockets." Sir Dudley 
Worth, of King James II's time, anticipated Adam Smith's 
" Wealth of Nations " by a century. It is claimed, that the 
greatest writers have been the greatest borrowers. Cole- 
ridge is of the opinion, that Tennyson's sonnets have many 
of the characteristic excellences of Wordsworth and 
Southey. Goldsmith, at the beginning of his career as an 
author, determined to commit to paper nothing but what 
was new; but when he found that what is new is so 
generally false, he adopted a different course. To Emerson 
all stealing is comparative; and if you come to absolutes, 
he asks, pray, who does not steal? Carlyle somewhere 
remarks, as if speaking his own sentiment, and without 
using quotation marks, "The rustic sits waiting till the 
river runs by," flattering his readers in the presumption 
that they know he is quoting Horace. Landor states, 
that Racine has stolen many things from Euripides; that 
he has spoiled most of them and injured all. By the same 
authority we are told, that when Shakspeare borrows, he is 
more original than the originals; that he breathes upon 
dead bodies and brings them to life. Coleridge thinks 
even the Psalms of David and the Proverbs of Solomon 
are not altogether original with those sacred writers. 
iEschylus considered his writings only a few crumbs 
picked up from the table of Homer. Some one has said, 
that Plutarch is not robbed by Shakspeare; he is glorified. 
Emerson believed in quoting and quoted from everybody 
— oftenest from Plato, Plutarch, and Montaigne. Speak- 
ing of the immense number of quotations and allusions to 
be found in Plutarch's writings, Emerson says we quickly 



PLAGIARISM 325 

cease to discriminate between what he quotes and what 
he invents; that 'tis all Plutarch's by right of eminent 
domain, and that all property vests in this emperor. 
Swift boasted that he never was known to steal a hint 
from any other writer. What shall we say of the "Ars 
Poetica" of Horace? asks Holmes, which is crowded with 
lines worn smooth as old sesterces with constant quota- 
tion. It was a remark of Sir Henry Wotton, that he was 
but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff. Landor's 
exquisite passage on the shell was copied, and injured, by 
both Byron and Wordsworth. J. P. Mahaffy states, that 
every early poet makes free use of earlier materials, and 
that there is in the history of primitive literature no in- 
stance when the first great advance was not based on 
previous work. Poor Richard's wit and wisdom are often 
not original with Franklin. Lady Montagu admired 
Pope's "Essay on Criticism" very much at first, because 
she did not know it was all stolen. Macaulay calls Mont- 
gomery a prince of plagiarists. The inventor, says Emer- 
son, only knows how to borrow. Milton has been called 
the celestial thief. With the ancients plagiarism was not so 
reprehensible as it is with us. Byron's famous "Apostro- 
phe to the Ocean" is said to be taken almost word for 
word from " Corinne." Those who never quote are never 
quoted, according to Disraeli. Scott, says Woodberry, bor- 
rowed his metre from Coleridge. Moliere, when accused 
of plagiarism, said he took his own wherever he found it. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds thinks happy appropriation is not 
plagiarism. 



326 LITERARY BREVITIES 

PLEASURE 

BALZAC speaks of one of those rare moments when 
delightful sensations make us forget everything. 
Lessing says joy is talkative. Sweet is pleasure after pain, 
Dryden remarks. The game of cards known as Boston is 
said to have been invented by officers of the French army 
during the time of our Revolution. Shelley says there are 
two kinds of pleasure, one durable, universal, and perma- 
nent, the other transitory and particular. Xerxes prom- 
ised a great reward to the inventor of a new pleasure. 
Some people take their pleasure sadly. Tolstoy mentions 
a secret game of children, where one was required to stand 
in the corner and not think of a white bear. Plato calls 
pleasure the bait of evils. It is probably true, as some one 
maintains, that there is no pleasure without pain. Ac- 
cording to Joubert, nothing dwarfs a man so much as petty 
pleasures. From Goethe we have the following, — 

"Every day hath its own sorrow, 
Gladness cometh with the night." 

There is a pleasure, Voltaire asserts, in having no pleasure. 
Chesterfield advises us, that if we observe carefully what 
displeases or pleases us in others, we shall find that the 
same thing will displease or please others in us. It is 
Landor's belief, that the recollection of a thing is frequently 
more pleasing than the actuality. Where there is much 
enjoyment, Macaulay thinks there will be some excess. 
Misce consiliis stultitiam brevem, is the advice of Horace. 
It is more pleasing to see smoke brighten into flame than 
flame sinking into smoke, from The Rambler. Dr. John- 
son thought life had few things better than the excitation 
produced by being whirled rapidly along in a postchaise. 
There is a pleasure in being in a vessel beaten about by a 



PLEASURE 327 

storm, provided we are certain it will not founder, says 
Pascal. The strong through pleasure soonest fall, the 
weak through smart, is Spenser's philosophy. Balzac 
suggests, that pain may be only violent pleasure. From 
Landor we have, — 

"Our brightest pleasures are reflected pleasures, 
And they shine sweetest from the cottage walls." 

In the opinion of Sainte-Beuve, we should enjoy little 
pleasure were we never to deceive ourselves. He that 
resisteth pleasure crowneth his life, remarks some one. 
The great pleasure in life, observes Walter Bagehot, is 
doing what people say you can't do. There must surely 
be more pleasure in desiring and not possessing, says 
Landor, than in possessing and not desiring. George 
Meredith thinks the purchase of furniture from a flowing 
purse a cheerful occupation. He that gives pleasure gets 
it, is a remark of Voltaire. And like a kiss all pleasure 
dies, is Goethe's. The following lines are by Matthew 

Arnold, — 

"For the eye grows filled with gazing 
And on raptures follow calms." 

Of linked sweetness long drawn out, is Milton's. Crothers 
thinks it a rare thing to enjoy the best things of the past. 
All men, says Dante, are delighted to look back. Bacon 
observes, that perils commonly are to be paid by pleasure. 
The following is anonymous, — 

" — the thing more perfect is, 
The more it feels of pleasure and of pain." 



328 LITERARY BREVITIES 

POETRY 

LOWELL states, that the best poetry has been the 
most savagely attacked. It is Balzac's opinion, 
that poets are great only because they know how to em- 
body facts or feelings in living forms. Poe declares, that 
the origin of poetry lies in a thirst for a wilder beauty than 
earth affords. The same author holds, that a long poem 
does not exist; he praises Longfellow's poem beginning, 
"The day is done and the darkness." As Homer was 
called "the Poet," so Lesbian Sappho, known as "the 
tenth Muse," was called "the Poetess." Tennyson ob- 
serves, that for a hundred people who can sing a song, 
there are not ten who can read a poem. It heightens the 
pleasure one has in reading Browning to know that but 
few can read him. Poe declares, that where verse is 
pleasant to the ear, it is silly to find fault with it because it 
refuses to be scanned. It is a statement of R. G. Moulton, 
that Hebrew literature rests its verse system, not on meter 
or rhyme, but on the parallelisms of clauses. The same 
writer says Shakspeare and Sophocles are poets in virtue 
of their having created a Hamlet or an (Edipus. When 
Rogers was asked why he did not write a sonnet, he replied, 
"I never could dance in fetters." iEschylus once with 
difficulty composed three verses in three days. Tennyson 
told Browning, that his Muse was as prolific as Hecuba. 
Campbell characterized the life of Philip Sidney as poetry 
put into action. Tennyson wrote his dramas, — " Harold," 
"Becket," and "Mary," after he was sixty-five years old. 
Tennyson was much addicted to entertaining his guests 
with reading his poems aloud to them. Chaucer was 
probably acquainted with the writings of Dante, Petrarch, 
and Boccaccio. Colley Cibber was made Poet Laureate in 
1730; Ben Jonson had received the same distinction in 



POETRY 329 

1619. Richelieu wished to be thought a great poet. 
Joubert asserts, that he who has no poetry in himself 
will find poetry in nothing. England first had a poet 
laureate in the fifteenth century; the office was made 
permanent in 1630. Poetry has no golden mean, Landor 
thinks. Dante called his poem a comedy, because it has 
a fortunate ending. Balzac calls a baby's feet a language. 
The East Indian epic, "The Great War of Bharatas," con- 
tains 110,000 verses, and is the longest poem in existence. 
This from Tasso, — 

"The silver-mantled morning fresh appeared, 
With roses crowned, and buskin' d high with gold." 

Stedman calls Tennyson's " Idyls of the King " an epic of 
chivalry. The adjective "Divine" was applied to Dante's 
great epic by later writers. Wordsworth says poetry 
comes from the heart and goes to the heart. It is declared 
by Dr. Holmes, that eight stanzas of four lines each have 
made the author of "The Burial of Sir John Moore" im- 
mortal. The cultivation of the poets brings into exercise 
mental resources and activities which are possible for 
every one to discover in himself, but which nothing but 
poetry can satisfactorily call forth. Washington and 
Jefferson both wrote poetry in a small way. The following 
is from Goethe, — 

"From hand to hand the jewel hath been passed; 
The very gilding is worn off at last." 

Lowell tells us, that all great poets have been in a certain 
sense provincial. Emerson's most quoted line is, "He 
builded better than he knew." Socrates thought quoting 
from the poets a waste of time, unless they were present 
to tell us what they meant. God, says Joubert, not willing 
to bestow truth upon the Greeks, gave them poetry. 



330 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Longfellow calls ballads the gypsy children of song. 
Macaulay alludes to verses too bad for the bellman. 
Pope advised old Wycherley to turn his poetry into prose, 
his rhyming was so bad. The French writer Quinet states, 
that poetry is the last form of literature to wither under a 
despotism. Addison gives Milton the first place among 
English poets. It is Heine's notion, that the history of 
poets is to be found in their works. As after the storm 
the flowers are most fragrant, writes Heine, so poesy ever 
blooms most grandly after a civil war. It is asserted by 
Heine, that Goethe treats every person that appears in his 
romances and dramas as if he or she were the leading 
character; that so it is with Homer, so with Shakspeare; 
that in the works of all great poets there are, in fact, no 
minor characters at all. Bryant's faculty seems to have 
been essentially descriptive, having but little of the narra- 
tive or dramatic. Bryant began writing verses in his ninth 
year; he was past eighty when he wrote, "The Flood of 
Years," a poem to be classed with "Thanatopsis," which 
latter he wrote at the age of seventeen. The following is 
from Campbell, — 

*"Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before." 

Poetry, says Cardinal Newman, is always the antagonist 
of science. In the judgment of Sir Isaac Newton, poetry 
is ingenious nonsense. Browning wrote in more than 
one hundred different meters. It is very little realized, 
observes Chesterton, that the vast majority of great poets 
have written an enormous amount of very bad poetry; 
Wordsworth is not alone in this. In " The Ring and the 
Book," Browning studied a single matter from nine differ- 
ent standpoints. Chesterton thinks Spenser and Keats 
have a mysterious incapacity for writing bad poetry. 



POETRY 331 

Browning, we are told, stands among the few poets who 
hardly wrote a line of anything else; he was clever enough 
to understand his own poetry, but not clever enough to 
understand his own character. It is claimed by some one, 
that the Greeks did not rhyme consciously. Montaigne 
thought the " Georgics " of Virgil the most accomplished 
work in the whole range of poetry. It is remarked by 
Crothers, that poetry is like music; that it is fitted, not 
to define an idea or describe a fact, but to voice a mood. 
Swift said he had finished his poem "The Shower," all 
but the beginning. Euripides calls epic poetry hymns 
that need no harp. Verdi composed the opera "Aida,"for 
which he was paid $30,000, to be used at Cairo, in celebrat- 
ing the opening of the Suez Canal. And that sweet city 
with her dreaming spires, is Matthew Arnold's line. These 
lines are Milton's, — 

"Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, 
Warble his native wood-notes wild." 

These are Wordsworth's, — 

"Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; 
And the most ancient Heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong." 

It is a remark of Camilla Crosland, that all poetry of the 
first order must be untranslatable; that it is scarcely 
possible that any phrase of another language can be quite 
so happy as that into which the molten thought of genius 
first flowed. Poetry is the utterance of emotions remem- 
bered in tranquillity, is Wordsworth's definition. It is 
Victor Hugo's thought, that an idea steeped in verse be- 
comes at once more cutting and more glittering; that it is 
iron turned to steel. When the poet is your host, observes 
Bulwer, his verses are sure to charm. Some one, with 
much grace and truth, says Burns made common life 



332 LITERARY BREVITIES 

classical. Poe declares melancholy to be the most legiti- 
mate of all poetic tones. Sainte-Beuve remarks, that 
Milton was not, like Shakspeare, the center of a constella- 
tion. It is the belief of Shelley, that of no other epoch in 
the history of our species have we records and fragments 
stamped so visibly with the image of the divinity of man, 
as of the century which preceded the death of Socrates; 
that it is poetry alone which has rendered this epoch mem- 
orable above all others. Again, Shelley says the errors of 
the great poets have been weighed and found to have been 
dust in the balance; they have been washed in the mediator 
and redeemer, time. Epicurus observes, that wise men 
live poems instead of writing them. Shelley asserts, that 
poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity of 
men. It is the opinion of Walter Raleigh, that it is the 
poets who preserve language from pollution and enrich it 
with new powers; that they redeem words from degrada- 
tion by a single noble employment. The same author 
observes, that it may be doubted whether women are ever 
sceptical enough to become great poets. Lowell regards 
Newman's "Lead, Kindly Light," far from poetry. Accord- 
ing to Shelley, poetry is the record of the best and happiest 
moments of the happiest and best minds. It is stated 
anonymously, that the chief of the poet's business is to 
give utterance to what oft was thought, but ne'er so well 
expressed. It was a remark of Cicero, that ancient Rome 
produced its statesmen first, and its poets later. It was 
the view of Aristotle, that the business of poetry is with 
general truth, that of history with particulars. Milton 
was the third great epic poet, Dante and Homer being the 
two preceding him. The poets, according to Leigh Hunt, 
are the common friends that keep up the intercourse 
between nature and humanity; how they double every 
delight for us, he observes, with their imagination and 



POETRY 333 

their music. Professor Woodberry declares Scott to be 
the most martial of English poets. In a collection of 
sixty-six hymns selected for the use of the World's Parlia- 
ment of Religion in 1893, nine were by Whittier, a larger 
number than from any other poet. It is remarked by 
Goethe, that Byron's women are good; that this, indeed, 
is the only vase into which we moderns can pour our 
ideality; that nothing can be done with the men; that 
Homer has got all beforehand in Achilles and Ulysses, the 
bravest and the most prudent. It is maintained by 
Charles L. Moore, that Coleridge's poetry is the most 
absolutely original in English literature. Following are 
Landor's famous lines on the shell, — 

"But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue; 
Shake one and it awakens, then apply 
Its polished lips to your attentive ear, 
And it remembers its august abodes, 
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there." 

While Shakspeare has numerous "fathers and daughters," 
he has scarcely any "mothers and daughters;" he has, 
however, "mothers and sons." The following lines are 
among the most beautiful of Landor's, — 

"I never pluck the rose; the violet's head 
Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank 
And not reproached me; the ever-sacred cup 
Of the pure lily hath between my hands 
Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold." 

Lessing insists, that the poet is as far beyond the painter 
as life is better than a picture. By night in vivid dreams 
that sweetly lied, is from Camoens. Sulpitia is the only 
Roman female poet whose verse survives. Rough winds 
do shake the darling buds of May, is Shakspeare's. Les- 
sing thinks that possibly all poetic pictures require a 
previous knowledge of their subject. Says Landor, — 



334 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"I drank of Avon too, a dangerous draught, 
That roused within the feverish thirst of song." 

Pontem indignatus Araxes, is Virgil's. This from Heine, — 

" Islands in a sea of vapor 
Float the countless mountain peaks." 

Lowell calls Carlyle a poet without the gift of song. 
Ludwig Borne claims, that poetry gives us what Nature 
denies — a golden age that rusts not, a spring that never 
fades, a cloudless bliss, and everlasting youth. Great 
poets, Bulwer asserts, have mostly passed their lives in 
cities. According to Dr. Johnson, the end of writing is 
to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing. 
Nearly all the Seven Wise Men of Greece, among whom 
were Solon and Thales, were poets. Some one has dis- 
covered that nearly all young poets write old. One of the 
church fathers called poetry the devil's wine. The poet, 
says Heine, is like the Almighty Creator in this, that he 
makes men in his own image. Sidney Lanier thinks Poe 
did not know enough; that he needed to know a good many 
more things in order to be a great poet. According to 
Goethe, a poet paints his characters by describing their 
actions. The poet, some one observes, perfects creation. 
Lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit, author unknown. 
The poets in Juvenal's time were accustomed to rehearse 
their poetry in August, in dog days. Young states, that 
Milton's blindness lay not in his song. It is a Latin say- 
ing, that one becomes an orator, but that one is born a 
poet. There is no profession on earth which requires an 
attention so early, so long, or so unremitting as that of 
poetry; and indeed of literary composition in general. 



POLITENESS 335 

POLITENESS 

YOU are one of those agreeable women with whom 
either speech or silence is golden, Tolstoy says most 
felicitously. On a certain day and at a certain hour a 
favor may be an honor; change the day and hour and it 
becomes an insult, is anonymous. Once when the Prince 
of Wales was talking poetry to him, Pope went to sleep. 
The irreproachable does not reproach, Victor Hugo asserts. 
Dr. Johnson never but once in his life was known to say, 
"I beg your pardon." It has been remarked by Mon- 
taigne, that he had often seen men uncivil by overcivility, 
and troublesome by their courtesy. Goethe speaks of 
good society, where it is reckoned unbecoming to dwell on 
any subject or search it to the bottom. Samuel Rogers 
informs us, that it is against all etiquette to ask a sovereign 
about his health. Greville thought Washington Irving 
lacked refined manners. Lord Charles Hay, at the battle 
of Fontenoy, said to the French officer, Marquis D'Aute- 
roche, "Bid your people fire." In a most chivalrous 
manner the Frenchman replied, "No, Monsieur, we never 
fire first"; Carlyle finds no good authority for this. It is 
a breach of Turkish etiquette to ask one's host if he will 
sell his house. Goldsmith declares that one may affront a 
gentleman as easily by professing to have met one who is 
in reality a stranger as by forgetting that he has met one 
he has really known before. The members of the Aca- 
demie Frangaise, of whatever rank or social standing, all 
alike address one another as "Monsieur." Markof, the 
Russian ambassador, was a match for Napoleon. As they 
were standing together, Napoleon purposely dropped his 
handkerchief, expecting Markof to pick it up. But 
Markof dropped his own beside Napoleon's and then 
picked it up, leaving Napoleon's where it lay. 



336 LITERARY BREVITIES 

POLITICS 

FOR a successful foreign minister, Landor thinks three 
things are requisite on occasion: to speak like an 
honest man, to act like a dishonest one, and to be indiffer- 
ent which you are called. The great issues of a republic 
like ours should be discussed and directly voted upon at 
least as often as once in four years. Whatever in this 
country, observes George William Curtis, in its normal 
condition of peace, is too delicate to discuss, is too danger- 
ous to tolerate. Monroe, at his second election, received 
every electoral vote but one. This exception was made, 
that it might not be said that any man had been unani- 
mously elected after Washington. Jefferson called his 
party the Republican party rather than the Democratic, 
as the latter was too suggestive of the Democratic clubs in 
Paris. R. B. Sheridan would have it, that there is no 
more conscience in politics than in gallantry. When we 
are sufficiently shrewd to be able politicians, observes 
Balzac, we are usually too old to profit by our experience. 
The same tells us that a man in politics never complains 
of treachery. It is Justin McCarthy's notion, that it is a 
great thing accomplished in political agitation to have 
found a telling name. The only way to purify a party is 
to keep it out of power. To reform the manners of the 
Locrians, Zaleucus made a law, that no free woman should 
be allowed more than one maid to follow her unless she 
were drunk. It is the belief of Justin McCarthy, that 
there can be no practical statesmanship without com- 
promise. Majorities do not make wrong right, declares 
Lyman Abbott. Thomas Jefferson was a high protec- 
tionist. It was a dictum of Alexander Hamilton, that if 
every Athenian citizen had been a Socrates, every Athe- 
nian assembly would have been a mob. According to 



POLITICS 337 

Addison, Cato's competitors for the censorship, to secure 
votes, promised to deal gently with vice. Cato, on the 
other hand, promised severity. Dr. Johnson thought the 
first Whig was the Devil. In political institutions, asserts 
Joubert, nearly everything we call an abuse was once a 
remedy. Oxford rejected Gladstone, so McCarthy says, 
the moment he became a liberal. John Adams appointed 
his relatives to office. The presidential election of 1796 
was the last at which the electors were allowed the free 
exercise of their judgment. We have it on the authority 
of W. E. Curtis, that during the administration of John 
Adams an act of Congress authorized him to punish people 
who wrote or published anything discreditable to the 
President, by fining them $2,000 and sending them to jail 
for two years. The demand of the extreme socialists 
seems to be, not that all should be happy, but that all 
should be as unhappy as they are. Unless the people use 
their voting power reasonably often, they naturally lose 
the consciousness of that power and subside into a state 
of indifference and irresponsibility. Macaulay's election 
expenses when running for parliament were £500. In the 
opinion of Macaulay, men who die on the scaffold for 
political offenses almost always die well. President 
Jackson made clerks of his secretaries; they came to be 
known as a "kitchen cabinet." When the Indianian, 
Dick Thompson, was secretary of the navy, some one 
jocosely asked him to which mast of a man-of-war the 
American flag should be attached; he quite as jocosely 
replied, "I think I shall refer that question to the attor- 
ney-general." Hayes is the only President of the United 
States who promised, when he was a candidate for the 
office, not to be a candidate again, who kept his word. 
Emerson pronounces a conservative to be a democrat gone 
to seed. Senator Hoar said of Henry J. Gardner, "He 



338 LITERARY BREVITIES 

was a very skilful political organizer; he knew better than 
any man I ever knew the value of getting the united sup- 
port of men who were without special influence." Addi- 
son informs us, that it was usual for the Roman censors to 
expel a senator who had been guilty of great immoralities, 
by omitting his name when they called over the list of the 
brethren. There was a change of party names during 
Jackson's administration; the terms Republican and Fed- 
eralist gave place to Democrats and Whigs. When it was 
first proposed to Jackson that he should run for the 
presidency, he scouted the idea, declaring himself wholly 
unfit for the office. Polk was our first "dark horse" 
presidential candidate. After retiring from the presidency, 
John Quincy Adams for seventeen years represented the 
Plymouth district in Congress. As the electoral college 
failed to elect, John Quincy Adams was chosen President 
by the House, although Jackson had received more elec- 
toral votes than he. Macaulay states, that while William 
III exercised the veto power freely, it has been used but 
once since his reign. A propos of Jackson's annoyance 
from office seekers, it is related that one caller apologized 
for making too protracted a visit; the President replied, — 
"Sit down, sir, and stay, I like to have you; you are the 
first man who has come to see me without asking for an 
office." Henry Clay was the father of the first protective 
tariff bill ever introduced in the American Congress. 
John Morley believes, that a slight ballast of mediocrity 
in a government steadies the ship and makes for unity. 
Gladstone proclaimed his belief, that Jefferson Davis and 
other leaders of the South had made a nation. Manzoni 
declares, that Cavour has all the prudence and all the 
imprudence of a true statesman. In political life, says 
Gladstone, a man must meet fortune in all its moods. 
Napoleon thought the best that could be said of a states- 



POLITICS 339 

man was, that he had avoided the biggest blunders. Sad 
it is, observes McCarthy, that a distinction is made be- 
tween the personal and the political integrity of a states- 
man. Lord Rosebery succeeded Gladstone as prime 
minister, although he had never sat in the House of 
Commons. It was a dictum of Napoleon, that young 
republics cannot be made out of old monarchies. Macau- 
lay went up to Cambridge a Tory, but Charles Austin soon 
made him a Whig. Burke has been called the Bossuet of 
politics. A curve is the shortest road in politics, according 
to Balzac. Some one has declared, that majorities are 
often not the most trustworthy of supports. A man not 
born a liberal may become a liberal, says Gladstone, but to 
be a Whig he must be born a Whig. Because President 
John Quincy Adams was absent from Washington long 
enough to visit his sick father at Quincy, his political 
opponents tried to make political capital out of it. Jules 
Lemaitre thought Rousseau furnished the Revolution 
with its vocabulary. It is a principle laid down in the 
Koran, that a ruler who appoints any man to an office, 
when there is in his dominions another man better qualified 
for it, sins against God and against the state. Cowper 
tells of a fascinating politician who kissed the ladies and 
likewise the maid in the kitchen. The party that has no 
chance of winning always nominates a good ticket. It 
was declared that John Reynolds, Governor of Illinois, 
never took a drink of water without serious meditation 
as to how it might affect his political prospects. In the 
year 55 B.C., Caesar granted a furlough to many of his 
soldiers in Gaul to go to Rome to vote for Crassus and 
Pompey. Goldsmith thought Burke gave to party what 
was meant for mankind. It was a maxim of Roger 
Sherman, that when one is in the majority he should vote, 
when in the minority, he should talk. Canning, when in 



340 LITERARY BREVITIES 

office, kept his eye on promising lads at Eton, who might 
make eligible followers. Steele won his election to the 
House of Commons by kissing the voters' wives with 
guineas in his mouth. Addison does not find that the Ro- 
man consuls had ever a negative vote in the passing of a 
law. Rosebery speaks of the "parliamentary Zoroasters," 
who worshiped the rising sun. Government is a contriv- 
ance of human wisdom to provide for human wants, is 
Burke's definition. Bolingbroke accused Swift of never 
coming without bringing a Whig in his sleeve. 

POPULARITY 

HENRY JAMES declares, that popularity shelters 
and hallows — has the effect of making a good- 
natured world agree not to see. George Sand thinks no 
girl so pretty but what she is forced to be amiable with 
everybody if she wants to have followers. Charles, Duke 
of Shrewsbury, of the time of James II, was called the 
"King of Hearts." More men adore the rising than the 
setting sun, says Plutarch. The "hosannahs" of today 
will tomorrow be changed to "crucify him," anonymous. 
Walt Whitman characterizes one as having the pass-key 
of hearts. The Jay treaty of 1794 rendered the ad- 
ministration exceedingly unpopular; Hamilton was stoned 
while speaking in favor of it, and Washington was called 
the "step-father of his country." A lady wishing at the 
time of Gladstone's golden wedding to send some gift, 
asked Browning to write an inscription for it; this he 
refused to do, owing to Gladstone's unpopularity caused 
by his "home rule" tendencies. In 1832, the Duke of 
Wellington was mobbed and pelted with all kinds of 
missiles as he rode through London. When some one 
alluded to the great pleasure Napoleon must feel in re- 



POWER 341 

ceiving public applause, he said, "Bah! the people would 
crowd about me just as eagerly if I were going to the 
scaffold." It was a saying of Dolly Madison, that to be 
popular with a man you must feed him and flatter him. 
Dr. John Brown thinks, that, generally speaking, a man 
should stand in doubt of himself when he is very popular. 
It has been observed by some one, that no one ever 
equaled Napoleon in the art of getting himself talked 
about. 

POVERTY 

COTTAGE rhymes to nothing better than pottage, is 
an observation of Balzac. The same mentions one 
whose funeral expenses the taxpayers will have to pay for. 
Magnas inter opes inops, is from Horace. That girl, says 
Balzac, would beggar Peru. Balzac tells of one who holds 
the gridiron and knows how the fish are fried. James 
Howell remarks, that nothing depraves ingenuous spirits 
and corrupts clear wits more than want and indigence. 
When need is highest, then aid is nighest, anonymous. 

POWER 

ALL love power, observes Beaconsfield, even if they 
do not know what to do with it. Westward the 
course of empire takes its way, is Bishop Berkeley's. 
No pent up Utica contracts our powers, is J. M. Sewell's. 
In Queen Elizabeth's heart the rule of love always yielded 
to the love of rule, anonymous. He who knows not how 
to dissemble, says Louis XI, knows not how to rule. A 
dog's obeyed in office, says Shakspeare. Some one has 
observed, that power is a dazzling cloak which covers 
every imperfection. Carlyle says the elder Pitt was king 
of England for four years. Intelligent persistence, some 



342 LITERARY BREVITIES 

one has asserted, is capable of making one person a ma- 
jority. This from Racine, — 

"'tis a task 

More difficult to quit a throne than life." 

It was the belief of Dr. Arnold, that the difference between 
one man and another is not more ability, but energy. 
All men are energetic in making a beginning, is an ob- 
servation of Thucydides. It is power, always power, 
remarks Hamerton, that commands the respect of men. 
Hadrian thought it reasonable to yield to one who com- 
mands thirty legions. In the opinion of Sainte-Beuve, 
power spoils men as soon as they touch it. Sarah O. 
Jewett declares, that there is no such king as a sea-captain; 
that he is even greater than a king or a schoolmaster. 
Power leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, says Benson. 
There are some wounds, it is said, though but of a cut 
finger, or the like, that we cannot well bind up for ourselves. 
Gibbon asserts, that the generality of princes, if they were 
stripped of their purple and cast naked into the world, 
would immediately sink to the lowest rank of society, 
without a hope of emerging from their obscurity. It was 
difficult to argue against Caesar with his ten legions. 
Addison affirms, that arbitrary power tends to make a man 
a bad sovereign. 

PRAISE 

OF whom to be dispraised were no small praise, is Mil- 
ton's. Our praises are our wages, is Shakspeare's. 
Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart, is Wordsworth's. 
Beethoven thinks that only the praise of one who enjoys 
praise can give pleasure. Praise is deeper than lips, says 
Browning. It has been remarked, that to praise one's 
wife is only self-praise. To praise it would be to destroy 
its magic charm, by Bielschowsky. Lowell thinks popu- 



PREJUDICE 343 

larity is as good for an author as the good will of an 
audience to a speaker. The living clarion that sounds 
the awakening of the nations, Victor Hugo's toast to the 
press. E. L. Godkin said he always considered anyone 
who conveyed to another a third person's praise of that 
other as a true Christian. Damn with faint praise, is 
Pope's. Allan Cunningham asserts, that all who offer 
themselves to criticism are desirous of praise. It is an 
injunction in The Spectator, that you should allow no one 
to be so free with you as to praise you to your face. Those 
best can bear reproof, says Euripides, who merit praise. 
One can't see her too often; she is always new, said of a 
certain French actress. Praises of the unworthy, declares 
Coleridge, are felt by ardent minds as robberies of the 
deserving. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the 
giver, according to Burke. 

PRECOCITY 

THE younger Pitt was made prime minister at the 
age of twenty-five, which office he held continuously 
for eighteen years. Dr. Holmes reminds us, that there 
are plants that open their flowers to the first rays of the 
sun; and that there are others that wait until evening to 
spread their petals. When Louis XVI returned from his 
coronation at Rheims, the boy Robespierre read to him 
an original Latin speech. 

PREJUDICE 

DR. JOHNSON would not even read Hume. David 
Deans, in the "Heart of Midlothian," refused to 
take medicine unless assured that his physician's religious 
belief was in agreement with his own. Carlyle said 



344 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Rhadamanthus would certainly give Macaulay four dozen 
lashes when he went to the Shades, for his treatment of 
Marlborough. In Macaulay's view, the Puritan hated 
bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but 
because it gave pleasure to the spectators. We may learn 
from the example of Cato, Gibbon observes, that a char- 
acter of pure and inflexible virtue is the most apt to be 
misled by prejudice. It is an observation of Macaulay, 
that men are not willing to attend the religious worship of 
people who believe less than they do, or to vote at elec- 
tions for people who believe more than themselves. 

PRIDE 

ALEXANDER disdained the ambassadors of Corinth, 
who came to make him a tender of a burgess-ship 
of their city; but when they proceeded to lay before him 
that Bacchus and Hercules were also in the register, he 
thankfully accepted the office. As a case of complacent 
self-conceit, what is told of a certain great lady is without 
a parallel; who had an assurance of future happiness in the 
belief that they would think twice before they would refuse 
a person of her condition. All censure of a man's self, 
observes Dr. Johnson, is oblique praise; it is in order to 
show how much he can spare. When Walt Whitman was 
asked if he thought Shakspeare as great a poet as himself, 
he replied that he had never been able to make up his mind. 
The foolish camel in the Hebrew proverb, in going to seek 
horns lost his ears. The great, but vain, Italian singer, 
Farinelli, used to say, "There is but one God, and one 
Farinelli." Cicero tells a good story at his own expense. 
Upon returning to Italy after his quaestorship in Sicily, 
naturally supposing that for months his career in Sicily had 
been the one thing in the mouths of all at Rome, he was 



PRIDE 345 

surprised to have some of his cronies salute him with, 
"Hello, old boy, where have you been? we haven't seen 
you for a month." To be proud of learning, says Jeremy 
Taylor, is the greatest ignorance in the world. Attila used 
to boast that grass never grew on the spot where his horse 
had trod. Whatever you do well you will look back upon 
with pride. People, says Browning, like building where 
they used to beg. Tasso reminds us, that lowest falls 
attend the highest flights. Scott calls Guy Mannering too 
proud to be vain. Hume thinks it difficult for a man to 
speak long about himself without vanity. It was consid- 
ered disreputable for a native Athenian to be a retail 
trader. The highest peak does not always afford the finest 
view. George Sand says the vain detest the vain. Balzac 
calls " de " the aristocratic particle. Schiller knows people 
who are too proud to imitate foreign virtues. He struts 
about and parades himself like an amateur god. George 
Eliot recalls a name "free from polysyllabic pomp." As 
squeamish as Donatello was about showing his ears. If 
ever, observes Rousseau, there was a man who did not 
derive more pain than pleasure from his vanity, that man 
was no other than a fool. A proud man looks you full in 
the face, but takes no notice of your saluting him, says 
Eustace Budgell. Landor thinks no one ever quite for- 
gave a wrong pronunciation of his name. They who have 
good wares, Scott remarks, are fond of showing them. 
It is only by disdain, states Eugene Sue, that you can 
conquer a proud man. Dowden calls attention to those 
magnates of the parish who make a kind of state entry into 
church when half the prayers are over. Simon, in Lucian, 
having got a little wealth, changed his name to Simonides, 
because he had so many poor relatives, and burned the 
house where he was born, that nobody should point it out. 
He put on all the airs of a lieutenant-governor. Some 



346 LITERARY BREVITIES 

one told Philip of Macedon after a victory, that his shadow 
was no longer than before. Seneca declares it to be a 
common thing for men to hate the authors of their prefer- 
ment, as being the witnesses of their mean origin. Paints, 
d' ye say? Why, she lays it on with a trowel, is from 
Congreve. Victor Hugo declares it to be arduous passing 
for a shining light. Cervantes was proud of having 
participated as a private soldier in the battle of Lepanto, 
in 1571, where he lost his left hand. Alexander said he 
would run in the Olympic race if he had kings for com- 
petitors. The following is from Shakspeare, — 

"O, but man, proud man, 
Drest in a little brief authority, 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
As makes the angels weep." 

How apt, says Shakspeare, the poor are to be proud. 
Louis XIV, whenever a town was about to be taken, had 
himself notified of the fact, that he might be present in 
person and appear to take it himself. Balzac thinks 
vanity should be left to those who have nothing else to 
recommend them. Gibbon considers false modesty the 
meanest species of pride. During a brief period of teach- 
ing, Bayard Taylor whipped a boy, who in after years 
took great pride in having been so punished by a poet. 
According to Balzac, the most national of all sentiments in 
France is vanity. The empty vessel makes the greatest 
sound, is Shakspeare's. Some one has observed, that you 
may easily discover a man's prevailing vanity by observing 
his conversation. It is a statement of R. L. Stevenson, 
that the respectable are not led so much by any desire of 
applause as by a positive need of countenance. Hamerton 
observes, that you can never dine with a dilettante without 
having to look at his sketches. Bulwer mentions the fact, 
that many great philosophers have been great beaux; that 



PRIDE 347 

Aristotle was a notorious fop; that Buff on put on his best 
lace ruffles when he sat down to write; that Pythagoras 
insisted greatly on the holiness of frequent ablutions; and 
that Horace took care to let us know what a neat, well- 
dressed, dapper little gentleman he was. The same 
author thinks vanity and valor go together, reminding us 
that Caesar, even in dying, thought of the folds of his 
toga; that Sir Walter Raleigh could not walk twenty 
yards because of the gems in his shoes; that Alcibiades 
lounged into the Agora with doves in his bosom; that 
Murat was bedizened in gold lace and furs; and that a 
slovenly hero like Cromwell is a paradox in nature and a 
marvel in history. Bielschowsky thinks nobody likes to 
forego applause. Madame de Stael used to twirl a poplar 
twig between her fingers to make her beautiful hand 
conspicuous. Hare asks if one is quite sure Pygmalion is 
the only person who ever fell in love with his own handi- 
work. Some satirist has remarked, that a curate does not 
desire to be bishop that he may exercise a wide influence, 
but primarily that he may be called "My lord." Dr. 
Johnson says great folks don't like to have their mouths 
stopped. Emerson's grandfather once, when going to 
church, was checked by his father with the reproof, 
"William, you walk as if the earth was not good enough 
for you." Amiel could not, like Scherer, content himself 
with being right all alone. Charles XII, when crowned, 
entered Stockholm riding on a sorrel horse that was shod 
with silver. Aristotle wore many rings on his fingers. 
Marsilio Ticino daily changed the jewels in his rings 
according to the mood of the moment. There's no pride, 
says George Meredith, like the pride of possession. It has 
been noted by some one, that an author shows more 
vanity in refusing to have his picture appear in his book 
than in allowing it to appear. Tolstoy calls vanity the 



348 LITERARY BREVITIES 

passion by which we do least injury to others and the most 
to ourselves. A little boy belonging to an aristocratic 
family, having cut his finger, cried, not on account of the 
hurt, but because the blood was red instead of blue. The 
nobles of Venice and Genoa, Balzac informs us, like those 
of Poland, in former times bore no titles. 

PUNCTUALITY 

HAVE not men improved somewhat in punctuality 
since the railroad came into use? A propos of 
Kant's punctuality, it was said that the people, when he 
happened at his door for his customary walk, knew it was 
just half -past four, and would set their watches accordingly. 
Let nothing be done without a purpose, was a maxim 
of Marcus Aurelius. It has been observed, that not the 
least of Mirabeau's talents was the gift of doing every- 
thing in season; he could not have chosen a better time to 
die. Robespierre joined the Brutus Club early, and was 
present at its least attended meetings. Everything at 
the right time, was Goethe's rule. Scott made it a 
principle of action, to answer every letter he received the 
same day he received it. 



T 



PUNISHMENT 

IE following is by John Trumbull, — 

"No man e'er felt the halter draw, 
With good opinion of the law." 



In the domestic government of the American Indians, 
the severest punishment inflicted upon a misbehaved 
child, was to throw a dash of cold water into his face. 
Amiel thinks every man rewards or punishes himself. 



RECREATION 349 

La Fontaine hoped, that in course of time the damned 
would feel as much at home in hell as a fish in water. A 
lower deep to which the hell we suffer seems a heaven, is 
anonymous. And Cain said unto the Lord, "My punish- 
ment is greater than I can bear." 

PURPOSE 

EVERY great mind, remarks Schiller, labors for 
eternity. The same again declares, that a man 
grows greater as his ends are great. Emerson regards 
him only a well-made man who has a good determination. 

RACE 

GOD made white men and black men, but the devil 
made half-castes, some one has observed. Be- 
sides French, Montaigne had both Spanish and 
Jewish blood in his veins. Charlevoix records the fact, 
that by the mingling of the French and Indians, the 
savages did not become French, but the French savages. 

RECREATION 

IN comparing Greek civilization with Roman, it is well 
to contrast the Olympic games of the former with the 
gladiatorial shows of the latter. Democritus counts a life 
without holidays a long journey without an inn. Talley- 
rand said to the man who had never learned whist, "What 
a miserable old age you are preparing for yourself." In 
cultivating the habit of reading, one is preparing a 
^resource for old age. Leigh Hunt presumes that the most 
philosophical of anglers would hardly delight in catching 
shrieking fish. 



350 LITERARY BREVITIES 

REFORM 

PROFESSOR WOODBERRY remarks, that Haw- 
thorne appears to take the same view of reform that 
is sometimes found in respect to prayer; that it has great 
subjective advantages and is good for the soul, but is 
futile in the world of fact. Balzac thinks morals are 
reformed only very gradually. A certain man set up a 
bottle of gin in his window when he gave up drinking, in 
order to defy drink. The Emperor Julian was too hasty 
in his attempts to reform the luxury of the palace at 
Constantinople. Every great author, observes Landor, 
is a great reformer. In conducting the Dial, Margaret 
Fuller, as noted by T. W. Higginson, had to attempt that 
hardest thing in life, to bring reformers into systematic 
co-operation. Scott thinks even an admitted nuisance of 
ancient standing should not be abated without some 
caution. Wounds cannot be cured without searching, says 
Bacon. Whoever heard of a reformer reaping the reward 
of his labor in his lifetime? asks Lincoln. 

REGRETS ' 

CATO the Censor regretted three actions of his life — 
having told a secret to his wife, that he had once 
gone a journey by sea when he could have gone by land, 
and having passed one day without doing anything. 
Regret, says Balzac, is not remorse, though it may be 
first cousin to it. It is asserted by some one, that those 
who meddle in matters out of their calling will have reason 
to repent. 



RELIGION 351 

RELIGION 

SIR THOMAS BROWNE held, with Milton, that the 
soul perishes with the body, to be miraculously raised 
with it at the last day. Some one has declared, that Dr. 
Johnson believed in the Bible so implicitly that he believed 
in nothing but the Bible. The burglar, at the gallows, 
had great consolation in the thought, that he had always 
taken off his hat when entering a church. Landor affirms, 
that there are pious men who believe they are serving God 
by bearing false witness in his favor. John Stuart Mill 
declares, that the notion that it is one man's duty that 
another should be religious, was the foundation of all the 
religious persecutions ever perpetrated. It is remarked 
by Newman Smythe, that a man who should today 
attempt to regulate his social life by the laws of Moses 
would be sent to the penitentiary. Addison says we have 
just religion enough to make us hate, but not enough to 
make us love, one another. It is Symonds's view, that the 
Greeks worshiped what was best and noblest in themselves. 
Originally, to be a libertine was to be a freethinker. 
Pindar, unlike Horace, was pious. To some one who 
remarked that Alexander I of Russia was pious, it was 
replied, "Yes, a very devout man — no doubt he said 
grace before swallowing Poland." Constantine called the 
Lord's Day Dies Solis (Sunday), a name not offensive to 
his pagan subjects. The Moslem says men sleep in life 
and wake in death. The Quakers do not celebrate the 
Eucharist; they cease from labor on Sunday for the ease of 
creation and not from reverence for the day. Mahomet, 
after talking with a Christian, would wash his hands and 
face by way of purification. Regard not how full hands 
you bring to God, enjoins Jeremy Taylor, but how pure. 
The Greeks and Romans had no seventh day of rest, but 



352 LITERARY BREVITIES 

numerous irregular holidays. It is a leading principle of 
Buddhism, that existence is an evil. The pirates of the 
Mediterranean, in the first century of our era, had a re- 
ligion of their own. Princess Elizabeth, daughter of 
George III, wrote from Windsor, "We began going to 
chapel this morning; it must be wholesome, it is so dis- 
agreeable." It is easier to cultivate religion than in- 
tellectuality, just as it is easier to submit passively than 
to contend persistently and painfully. We hear of 
Mohammedan Doctors who had read the Koran 70,000 
times. Godfrey, when made king of Jerusalem, refused 
to wear a crown of gold, because our Lord had worn a 
crown of thorns. Bacon pronounces prosperity to be the 
blessing of the Old Testament, adversity that of the New. 
The Lacedaemonians sacrificed to the Muses before enter- 
ing battle. Miracles, Howells affirms, are never impossi- 
ble in the right hands. St. Augustine defines the nature 
of God as a circle whose center is everywhere, and whose 
circumference is nowhere. The tonsure of the monks was 
supposed to represent the crown of thorns worn by our 
Saviour. It is remarked by George Sand, that rank and 
wealth cloak every vice, and, provided you go to church, 
everything else is tolerated. God is not so bad as he is 
painted, is a French proverb. Shakspeare, the greatest of 
all writers, though living in a time of most bitter religious 
controversy, was nevertheless so conservative, that it is 
impossible to tell from his works whether he was a Prot- 
estant or a Catholic. Calvin interpreted "Six days shalt 
thou labor " literally, and would allow no holidays. Shelley 
was expelled from Oxford, on account of having written a 
pamphlet questioning the logic of the current arguments in 
favor of the existence of a God. Owing to his irreligion, 
Shelley was not allowed the guardianship of his own 
children. It is a remark of Steele, that the first object 



RELIGION 353 

the blind ever saw was the Author of Sight. The great 
books of the world are none of them atheistic. A super- 
ficial tincture of philosophy, Bacon asserts, may incline 
the mind to atheism, yet a farther knowledge brings it 
back to religion. Socrates's prayer to Pan was, "Make me 
to be beautiful in soul; teach me to think wisdom the only 
riches." Sterne declared, that in solitude he would 
worship a tree. It is sometimes said of a clergyman, that 
he has beautiful texts. Hawthorne calls "parenthetically 
devout" the people one sees kneeling, crossing themselves, 
and muttering brief prayers in the most incidental manner 
at Rome. Casting a dim religious light, is Milton's. 
Cowper's friend, John Newton, had the peculiarly mixed 
conscience which allowed him to go on a Guinea voyage 
largely supplied with hymn-books and hand-cuffs. When 
Longfellow visited Stockholm, he was shocked to find that 
the clergy played cards on Sunday. Jesus and Paul 
preached, but did not baptize. Victor Hugo refers to 
certain people who pray to kill time. Hooker has been 
called the real father of Anglicanism. Speaking of the 
bibliolatry of the Puritans, Coleridge observes, that they 
would not put on a corn-plaster without scraping a text 
over it. There are two things which I abhor, says Maho- 
met, the learned in his infidelity, and the fool in his devo- 
tions. Utilitarianism may account for the idea of right 
and wrong, but not for the universality of a belief in God 
and immortality. The nonconformist Baxter was author 
of the saying, "Hell is paved with infants' skulls." 
Prayers, says Browning, move God; threats and nothing 
else move men. Steele tells of a woman so fervent in her 
devotions as frequently to pray herself out of breath. 
The Koran commands the husbandman to cut off each 
stalk of rice separately. Coleridge thinks Christianity 
proves itself, as the sun is seen by its own light. Luther 



354 LITERARY BREVITIES 

and Bossuet both thought slavery not opposed to Chris- 
tianity. Thoreau believed it necessary for one to be a 
Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the 
life of Christ. Three prayers like that would freeze hell 
over, is a remark of Peter Cartwright. The way of Provi- 
dence is a little rude, says Emerson. A narrow faith, 
Amiel declares, has much more energy than an enlightened 
one. There is an Arabian proverb to the effect, that no 
man is called of God till the age of forty. Ptolemy II 
caused the Old Testament to be translated into Greek; 
this version was called the Septuagint, as seventy (or 
more correctly seventy-two) men were employed in the 
work. Discite iustitiam moniti et non temnere Divos, is 
Virgil's. Emerson thinks Luther would have cut his 
hand off sooner than write his theses against the Pope, 
if he had suspected that he was bringing on with all his 
might the pale negation of Boston Unitarianism. Many 
have quarreled about religion who never practised it. 
Orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is your doxy, was 
a saying of Franklin. It is strange, says Goethe, that with 
all I have done, there is not one of my poems that would 
suit the Lutheran hymn-book. Carlyle mentions a 
dissenting Scotch family who walked fifteen miles and 
back to church every Sunday. In July, 1776, Virginia 
had stricken the king's name from the Prayer Book, and 
Rhode Island had imposed a fine of £1,000 upon anyone 
who prayed for him. Emerson regards the unique im- 
pression of Jesus upon mankind, whose name is not so 
much written as ploughed into the history of this world, 
as proof of the subtle virtue of this infusion. Dr. Holmes 
sees a kind of harmony between boldly contrasted beliefs, 
like that of complementary colors. The same writer 
thinks true religious equality harder to establish than civil 
liberty. Richelieu pursued the policy of being a Protes- 



RELIGION 355 

tant abroad and a Catholic at home. Though at first a 
Protestant, Rousseau became a Catholic, and at the age 
of forty-two became a Protestant again. Thoreau thinks 
the New Testament is remarkable for its pure morality; 
the best of the Hindoo scripture, for its pure intellect. 
Dr. Tamponet declared, that he would trace heresies in 
the Lord's Prayer if anyone desired it. Rousseau tells of 
an old woman whose only prayer was the interjection 
"Oh." When the Greek sacrificed, he raised his eyes to 
heaven; the Roman when sacrificing veiled his head. 
George Eliot would have a clergyman feel himself a bit of 
every class. Symonds asserts, that science cannot be 
more fatalistic than Calvinism. Jove's random fires 
strike his own fane, says Aristophanes. That Marius was 
seven times made consul was to Cotta a sufficient argu- 
ment against Providence. Professor Peck sees something 
peculiarly piquant in heterodoxy when it is preached from 
an orthodox pulpit. Friday is the Mohammedan Sunday. 
We are told of a certain man who killed himself upon read- 
ing Plato's description of the future life. It is the belief 
of De Quincey, that without Christianity, in these times, 
there is no absolute advance possible on the path of true 
civilization. Balzac would give a hundred sous to a 
mathematician who would demonstrate by an algebraic 
equation the certainty of a hell. The following is from 

Schiller, — 

"Time consecrates; 

And what is grey with age becomes religion." 

This from Landor, — "Did you ever try how pleasant it 
is to forgive anyone? There is nothing else wherein we 
can resemble God so perfectly and easily." Thoreau 
alludes to an old man who fished, not for sport nor solely 
for a subsistence, but as a sort of solemn sacrament and 
withdrawal from the world, just as the aged read their 



356 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Bible. Moulton informs us, that when King James's 
version of the Bible was made, the scholars of that age 
did not even know that parts of the Bible were in verse; 
the distinction between prose and verse in Hebrew, he 
assures us, was rediscovered a century later. It is esti- 
mated, that altogether the Buddhists comprise about 
one-third of the human race. Botsford finds in the 
monuments and literature of the Egyptians no evidence of 
a belief in the transmigration of souls. Buddhism, in its 
essentials, it has been claimed, was, more than anything 
else, a revolt from corrupt Brahmanism; and the only 
system of religion known to have been founded by an 
Aryan teacher. Milton held, that matter was not created 
out of nothing; but that it was an efflux from God's own 
nature. It is an assertion of Jeremy Taylor, that if you 
divide the church into twenty parts, in whatever part 
your lot falls, you and your party will be damned by the 
other nineteen. According to an old German fable, a 
certain priest was offered a bishopric if he would come to 
the conclusion that the sun is triangular, and succeeded 
in reaching such a conclusion. A man may be religious 
and yet be evil, says Gilbert Parker. Need teaches 
prayer, the proverb says. And what, my dear, asks 
Richardson, is this needle's point of Now to a boundless 
eternity? Social exclusiveness reaches its climax in the 
ancient Thracian king who had a religion by himself, and 
a god of his own whom his subjects were not allowed to 
worship. In the opinion of Gilbert Parker, the passion of 
a cause grows in you as you suffer for it. When Calvin 
wrote his commentaries on the New Testament, he stopped 
when he came to Revelation. Moses described the crea- 
tion briefly, whereas he spent a whole chapter in narrating 
the purchase of the field and cave that Abraham bought 
to bury Sara in. Mohammed, the Jews, and the early 



t 

RELIGION 357 

Christians used sand instead of water when baptizing in 
emergencies. It is a remark of Emerson, that there is a 
good deal of scepticism in the street and hotels and places 
of coarse amusement; but that is only to say that the prac- 
tical faculties are faster developed than the spiritual; that 
where there is depravity, there is a slaughter-house style 
of thinking; and that one argument for a future life is the 
recoil of the mind in such company. The usurer has been 
called the greatest Sabbath-breaker, because his plow 
goeth every Sunday. If we knew, says C. C. Everett, 
with absolute certainty, that what seems to us wrong is 
really wrong; if we knew with equal certainty, that there 
is a divine power that will as assuredly punish wrong as 
fire burns the hand that is thrust into it, that thus life has 
worth incalculable, — earth would be no longer man's 
probation place. This says Browning, — 

"For a loving worm within its clod 
Were diviner than a loveless God." 

Christ seems always in advance of the world, thinks C. C. 
Everett, simply because he is clothed upon by the un- 
attained ideal of every age. When Edward Everett 
received his degree at Oxford, the undergraduates treated 
him with gross incivility, and because he was a Unitarian. 
Heine declares the final fate of Christianity to be de- 
pendent upon our need of it. The early New Haven 
colony refused to have trial by jury, because no such 
thing could be found in the Mosaic law. William M. 
Evarts gives an account of a Sunday spent with Judge 
Kent on the Hudson in company with several New York 
lawyers, when they all went to the Episcopal Church in 
the forenoon and dined with the Judge after the service. 
During the service one of the company kept far behind 
in the responses, much to the discomfort of the others, 



358 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the Judge in particular. At dinner he broke out with, 
"Davis, why couldn't you descend into hell with the rest 
of us?" A certain pious woman of Calvinist belief would 
weep for hours because God is so infinitely good. It is 
beautiful, but what empty and awful mockery, if there 
were no God, says Tennyson in Westminster Abbey. Fiske 
pronounces the spreading of Christianity over the Roman 
Empire the greatest event in all history. The same 
observes, that while the millennium is sure to come sooner 
or later, it cannot be bullied or coaxed into coming pre- 
maturely. Calvin was willing to burn Servetus for doubt- 
ing the doctrine of the Trinity. According to Herodotus, 
the Persians had no images of the gods, no temples nor 
altars; their wont, however, was to ascend to the summits 
of the loftiest mountains, and there to sacrifice to Jupiter, 
which is the name they gave to the whole circuit of the 
firmament. The sight of a priest coming out of the grand 
Cathedral of Saint Stephen at Vienna, to carry extreme 
unction to a dying man, persuaded Werner, the tragic 
poet, to become a Catholic. Balzac declares, that every 
criminal is an atheist — often without knowing it. Every 
Greek city had in its town hall a sacred hearth on which it 
always kept fire burning. It is a notion of Novalis, that 
the more sinful a man feels himself, the more Christian he 
is. Cannot you, like Pascal and Bossuet, be at once 
learned and pious? asks Balzac. Calvin decreed, that 
God should be worshiped in the mother-tongue of every 
country. The following is by De Foe, — 

" Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
The Devil always builds a chapel there; 
And 'twill be found upon examination, 
The latter has the largest congregation." 

It is asserted by Lyman Abbott, that in the United States 
hitherto our churches have grown faster than our popula- 



RELIGION 359 

tion. It was a pious Scotch farmer who on the "Sawbath 
day" would bargain for a cow, "gin it were Monday." 
The gamblers at Homburg, they say, never play on Good 
Friday. It is Tennyson's belief, that humanity will not 
and can not acquiesce in a godless world. John Wyclif , 
who translated the Bible in the latter part of the fourteenth 
century, has been called our first Protestant. Rabelais, 
Scarron, Swift, Sterne, and Sidney Smith were all priests. 
William III refused to "touch" for scrofula, while 
Charles II touched for over 100,000 afflicted persons. 
Garfield was in favor of taxing church property. Balzac 
envied the privilege of God, who can read the under 
currents of the heart. Brownson, after embracing 
Catholicism, was obliged to study Latin before entering 
the priesthood, but at his age found great difficulty in 
mastering the Latin accent. George Ripley, a precise 
Latin scholar, dreamed that he went to confession to 
Brownson, who ordered him as a penance to kneel and 
repeat after him the fifty-eighth Psalm in the Vulgate. 
Ripley, shocked at the thought of following Brownson's 
awful pronunciation, awoke with a cry, "O Lord, the 
punishment is greater than I can bear." When Luther 
became convinced that the Pope was wholly bad, he 
ordered all his previous admissions on papal authority to 
be burned. Although Jefferson, before the Revolution, 
suggested a day of fasting and prayer in Virginia, when 
President he refused to issue such proclamations. Carlyle, 
in answer to those who found fault with Goethe's lack of 
religious orthodoxy, said: "Gentlemen, do you know the 
story of the man who railed at the sun because he couldn't 
light his pipe by it?" The Lacedaemonians, in their 
prayers, asked the gods to give them all good things so 
long as they were virtuous. The Long Parliament, in 
1644, gave orders that Christmas should be observed as a 



360 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Fast Day. The first crusade, instigated by Peter the 
Hermit, was agreed upon in 1095. The nomadic Scythians 
from earliest times worshiped a bare sword. Pascal re- 
garded the prophesies the strongest proofs of Jesus Christ. 
The same authority pronounced the knowledge of God 
very far from the love of God. Gladstone thought Inno- 
cent III the greatest of the Popes. Gladstone warns us 
against letting our religion spoil our morality. Pascal 
thinks experience shows a vast difference between devout- 
ness and goodness. States, says Pascal, would perish if 
they did not often make their laws bend to necessity, a 
thing religion has never suffered or practised. It was 
Jenny Geddes who threw the stool at the Dean of Edin- 
burgh's head. President Eliot thinks the new religion 
will not attempt to reconcile men and women to present 
ill by promises of future blessedness. Pascal declares the 
religion which alone is contrary to our nature to be that 
alone which has always existed. The most conservative 
religionists have frequently at the outset been radicals. 
If St. Paul had not been a very zealous Pharisee, observes 
R. L. Stevenson, he would have been a colder Christian. 
The American Indian never kneels. Rousseau never 
liked to pray in a chamber. Providence knows well on 
whose shoulders to impose its tasks, said by Heine of 
Luther. For twenty years Rev. Paul Lorrain reported 
the dying confessions of the condemned criminals of 
Newgate Prison, always laying stress upon their penitence; 
these criminals were called "Lorrain's Saints." Dean 
Swift hated Lent. Phidias is said to have made gods 
better than men. God consecrates no privileges, asserts 
George Sand. The reverence of a man's self, observes 
Bacon, is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices. 
It is a remark of Chesterton, that Browning believed that 
to every man that ever lived upon the earth had been 



RELIGION 361 

given a definite and peculiar confidence of God; that each 
one of us was the founder of a religion. The Scotch 
woman at Balmoral complained of the way the attendants 
upon the Queen disregarded the Sabbath in boating and 
rowing; when reminded of our Saviour's going about on 
the Sabbath, she replied, "We don't think any more of 
Him for it either." John Randolph, in his youth, was 
greatly fascinated by the Mohammedan religion. We are 
told of a clergyman of ability and experience who, in the 
pulpit, trembled when he saw Robert Burns enter church. 
Calvin called the pastors of his church "ministers." 
Beaconsfield thinks sensible men are all of the same 
religion, and that they never tell what it is. Lessing says 
a single thankful glance towards heaven is the most perfect 
prayer. Frederick the Great once expressed a willingness 
that every one of his subjects, for all he cared, might take 
his own peculiar way of getting to heaven. The Arabs' 
religion did not permit them to cultivate the fine arts. 
Among the Romans persons were treated as atheists who 
would not kiss their hands when they entered a temple. 
The honest priest said he could not tell a lie to gain heaven 
by it. Madame de Stael asserts, that the pagans deified 
life, as the Christians sanctify death. In the opinion of 
Matthew Arnold, the mental habit of him who imagines 
that Balaam's ass spoke, in no respect differs from the 
mental habit of him who imagines that a Madonna of 
wood or stone winked. The papal law observes no distinc- 
tion of birth, observes Madame de Stael. John T. Morse 
declares, that the Lisbon earthquake filled Europe with 
infidels. Frankincense to the gods, says Bulwer, but 
praise to men. In the opinion of Andrew D. White, the 
real Mohammedan cannot be converted. The French 
heaven, says George Eliot, is having the laughers on our 
side. Constantine told Ascesius, a rather heretical bishop, 



362 LITERARY BREVITIES 

to take a ladder and get up to heaven by himself. Rous- 
seau read the Bible through five or six times. James 
Howell, on Sundays, prayed in seven different languages. 
The same declares, that he never heard of anything that 
prospered, which being once designed for the honor of God, 
was alienated from that use. It is better, says Bacon, to 
have no belief of a God than such an one as dishonors him. 
Barrett Wendell notes the fact, that there was never any 
image of the Last Judgment but showed you shaven crowns 
among the damned. Carlyle calls the passage in Tacitus 
relating to the early Christians, the most earnest, sad, and 
sternly significant passage that we know to exist in writing; 
since Tacitus, the wisest and most penetrating man of his 
generation sees so little in the most important transaction 
that has occurred or can occur in the annals of mankind. 
Sainte-Beuve asked to have a pagan burial, which request 
was granted him. Cato wondered how when one sooth- 
sayer met another he could help laughing. Benson be- 
lieves, that unless a man converts himself no one else can. 
William James believes, that the evidence for God lies 
primarily in inner personal experiences. J. H. P. Belloc 
thinks, that, in revivals, men and women sway ecstatically 
to phrases they have heard a thousand times. Bishop 
Colenso's laundress declined to wash for him, because by 
doing so she lost customers. The eminent judge, Matthew 
Hale, never once for thirty-six years missed going to church. 
God does not always pay on Saturday, some one remarks. 
Dr. John Brown speaks of being in a sort of pro tempore 
heaven. There is hardly a mythological system that does 
not include a snake. It is a remark of Hare, that religion 
presents few difficulties to the humble, many to the proud, 
and insuperable to the vain. In heaven, observes some 
one, if we choose, now and then, we shall even have in- 
conveniences. Lemaitre declares, that the doctrine that 



RELIGION 363 

one has no remorse because he repents, is one according 
to which actions are of no consequence provided that one 
loves God. Duties, says Stonewall Jackson, are ours, 
consequences are God's. James Howell knew of a church 
edifice on which the word "God" was inscribed in very 
large letters. No religion but our own, says Pascal, has 
taught that man is born in sin. A candid evangelist, 
observes Blackie, is generally a black sheep to his brethren. 
The dog has been deified in heaven, on earth, and in hades. 
Joubert declares that it is not hard to know God, provided 
one will not force oneself to define him; that the proofs 
of the existence of God have made many men atheists. 
Queen Elizabeth was wont to say, that she knew very well 
wiiat would content the Catholics, but that she never 
could learn what would content the Puritans. When God 
sends his light, says Cervantes, he sends it to all. Col. 
Benjamin Franklin's men, when he was fighting the 
Indians in 1756, were indifferent to the chaplain's services. 
To meet this, Franklin made a rule, "no prayers, no 
rum"; then the men were said to "walk after the spirit." 
William James calls pessimism a religious disease. 
Crothers alludes to the good Christian who goes to church 
every Sunday only to hear the parson rebuke the sins of 
people who are not there. The gods themselves, remarks 
Pindar, cannot annihilate the action that is done. Steele's 
life, says Macaulay, was spent in sinning and repenting. 
Hawthorne suspects, that when people throw off the faith 
they were born in, the best soil of their hearts is apt to 
cling to its roots. Bending before the corrections of the 
Almighty, Haydon thinks, is the only way to save the 
brain from insanity and the heart from sin. Matthew 
Arnold defines religion as morality touched by emotion. 
Heine speaks of the multiplication table being bound up 
with the catechism, though, he says, it is not easy to recon- 



364 LITERARY BREVITIES 

cile it with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. In the time 
of Peter the Great it was argued by certain of the Russians, 
that smoking tobacco was a sin, but getting drunk with 
brandy was not; because the Scripture saith, "That 
which proceedeth out of the mouth defileth a man, and 
that which entereth into it doth not defile him." Gibbon 
states, that the doctrine of the resurrection was first 
entertained by the Egyptians. According to Junius, 
there are proselytes from atheism, but none from super- 
stition. Evil that good may come, asserts Hay don, is the 
prerogative of the Deity alone, one that should never be 
ventured on by mortals. To despise flowers is to offend 
God, says Dumas. Junius observes, that the mistakes of 
one sex find a retreat in patriotism, those of the other in 
devotion. Diderot thought the world as the result of 
chance more explicable than God. Referring to the claim 
of some thinkers, that civilization could not exist without 
a belief in God and in another life, Amiel suggests, that 
such persons seem to forget that Japan and China prove 
the contrary. Sainte-Beuve, who never belonged to any 
confession, considered himself as one of "the great dio- 
cese." Swinburne thinks the gods hear men's hands before 
their lips. They are like to be short graces where the devil 
plays the host, observes Charles Lamb. Edward Hutton 
remarks, that genuine theism humbles the mind, while 
genuine pantheism inflates it. To a Greek of the age of 
Plato, Jowett thinks, the idea of an infinite mind would 
have been an absurdity. From despair we learn prayer, 
German proverb. No appearances whatever, William 
James states, are infallible proofs of grace; our practise, 
he insists, is the only sure evidence, even to ourselves, that 
we are Christians. A lady once mentioned the pleasure it 
gave her to think she could "always cuddle up to God." 
Some one has declared, that the first maker of the gods 



RELIGION 365 

was fear. The first repentance, according to William 
James, is to up and act for righteousness, and forget that 
you ever had relations with sin. Professor James, alluding 
to a picture by Guido Reni, in the Louvre, which represents 
St. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck, remarks, — 
"The richness of the picture's allegorical meaning is due to 
Satan's being there — that is, the world is all the richer for 
having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his 
neck." The same acute thinker regards the best fruits of 
religious experience as the best things history has to show. 
John Fiske says the heretic is not now burned at the stake; 
but there is an organized policy to starve him by injuring 
his reputation and lying about him. Sidney Lanier in- 
forms us, that late explorers have found some nations that 
have no god, but that he has not read of any nation that 
had no music. Men need formulas, says Professor James, 
just as they need fellowship in worship; epithets, he re- 
marks, lend an atmosphere and overtones to our devotion. 
Again James says, "If an Emerson were forced to be a 
Wesley, or a Moody forced to be a Whitman, the total 
human consciousness of the divine would suffer." Curse 
not* even the devil, is the injunction of some one. George 
Meredith alludes to the ascetic zealot who hugs his share 
of heaven in his hair shirt and scourge. It has been ob- 
served, that natural religion, so called, is no religion at all, 
since it cuts man off from prayer. Stanley Hall asserts, 
that of the ten crimes of the Hebrews of old only 
one is now a crime. John Wesley thought giving up 
witchcraft would be giving up the Bible. How much 
beyond whole libraries of orthodox theology, observes 
Carlyle, is, sometimes, the mute action, the unconscious 
look of a father, of a mother, who had in them devoutness, 
pious nobleness. Cardinal Newman thought there was no 
better evidence for ancient than for modern miracles. 



366 LITERARY BREVITIES 

A dead man lying on the ground with outstretched arms is 
in the form of a cross. Landor thinks it odd enough that 
no temple or altar was ever dedicated to beauty. The 
Roman senate always met in a temple or consecrated 
place; and before they entered on business every senator 
dropped some wine and frankincense on the altar. God 
is the evident invisible, declares Victor Hugo. The same 
declares, that the acceptance of God is the final effort 
of philosophy. It has been affirmed, that the situa- 
tion of the blind is unpropitious to religious sentiment. 
Holmes calls Emerson an iconoclast without a hammer, 
who took down our idols from their pedestals so tenderly 
that it seemed like an act of worship. Swedenborg thinks 
the trouble with hell is, we shall not know it when we 
arrive. God alone is not enough for the orphan, says 
Leonie. Queen Anne thought animals happy, because 
they run no risk of going to hell; some one reminded her 
that they are there already. How many men believed 
they prayed to Jupiter when they prayed to Jehovah! 
exclaimed Victor Hugo. Rosebery gives a statement of 
Napoleon, to the effect that he never could have achieved 
what he did had he been religious. Balzac imagines the 
blank faces of the saintly crowd, if heaven were to play 
us such a joke as to omit the day of judgment. One 
theory of future punishment is, that the soul in purgatory 
feels as great a desire to be punished for a sin as it had to 
commit it. Dante, being asked why he put more Christ- 
tians than gentiles into hell, replied, "Because I have 
known the Christians better." Dumas thinks a bishop 
must sacrifice more to appearances than a simple clerk. 
iElian mentions a foolish people who worshiped a fly and 
sacrificed an ox to it. 



ROYALTY 367 

REST 

BLESSED Nirvana — sinless, nameless rest, anony- 
mous. William Black thinks leisure an invaluable 
gift to a man who accepts his life sacredly. It is the advice 
of Sir Arthur Helps, that a man should have some pursuit 
which may be always in his power, and to which he may 
turn gladly in his hours of recreation. Who sleeps dines, 
is from the French. Rufus Choate defined the lawyer's 
vacation as the time after he has put a question to a witness 
while he is waiting for an answer. The following is from 
Horace, — 

Neque semper arcum 
Tendit Apollo. 

We are assured, that there is no such rest as that which is 
acquired through labor. Feelingly sweet is stillness after 
storm, is Wordsworth's. I loaf and invite my soul, is 
Walt Whitman's. 

ROYALTY 

UNDER Louis XIV one dared not speak; under Louis 
XV one spoke low; under Louis XVI one spoke 
aloud, according to Marechale de Richelieu. If those 
waters of the Seine were ink, said the Moorish envoy, they 
would not suffice to describe adequately the grandeur and 
magnificence of Louis XIV. Good advisers make good 
kings, Dumas thinks. 



368 LITERARY BREVITIES 

SCHOLARSHIP 

HEINE speaks of old Canonicus as one who studied 
night and day as though he feared lest the 
worms might find a few ideas missing in his 
head. Longfellow ranked fourth and Hawthorne eigh- 
teenth in the class of 1825 at Bowdoin. In the fall of 1810 
Bryant entered the sophomore class of Williams College, 
where he remained but one year; like Cooper at Yale, he 
did not graduate. It is said that the younger Pitt did not 
read much; he was, however, a fine Greek scholar; as 
an author he has left but little. Late in life Bayard 
Taylor began the study of Greek, and also learned to paint. 
Latin was Montaigne's mother tongue. Bacon was not 
much of a Greek scholar. 

SCIENCE 

TEARS, says Balzac, are composed of a little phos- 
phate of lime, chloride of sodium, mucus and water. 
The French writer Prevost suffered a sudden stroke of 
apoplexy in the sixty-seventh year of his age; a quack, 
thinking him dead, began a post-mortem examination, 
under which Prevost revived, but afterwards died from 
the effects of the knife. The botany of the ancients, it 
is claimed, was much more advanced than their geology. 
Luther and Melanchthon denounced the idea, that the 
planets revolve around the sun. Air balloons came into 
existence the latter part of the eighteenth century. As 
useless as the rudimentary hind legs of a whale. The 
Greek Herophilus, 300 B.C., was the first to dissect human 
subjects. According to Matthew Arnold, literature nour- 
ishes the whole spirit of man, while science ministers only 
to the intellect. Six centuries ago Roger Bacon explained 



SCIENCE 369 

the precession of the equinoxes and invented gunpowder. 
Benjamin Franklin invented double spectacles, with one 
lens in the upper half for observing distant objects and 
another in the lower half for reading. The low state of 
physical science at Athens may be seen in the fact that 
Socrates declared astronomy to be among the divine 
mysteries, which it was impossible to understand and 
madness to investigate. Professor Young of Princeton 
had astronomy in the blood, both his father and maternal 
grandfather having been astronomers. Herschel took to 
astronomy at the age of forty-seven. A scorner of physic 
once declared, that nature and disease may be compared 
to two men fighting, the doctor to a blind man with a 
club who strikes into the melee, sometimes hitting the 
disease and sometimes hitting nature. A diamond and 
a piece of charcoal are essentially of the same material. 
Samuel Butler represented the scientists of his time as 
engaged in ascertaining whether fishes sleep. The 
following is from Hudibras, — 

"When all their wits to understand the world 
Can never tell why a pig's tail is curled." 

It has been estimated, that if a whale ninety feet long be 
struck on the tail by a harpoon, two seconds will elapse 
before the blow will be communicated to the brain and a 
return communication cause the movement of the tail to 
damage the boat. It is not possible for every man to be 
a scientist; it is, however, possible for him, through 
literature, to be respectably familiar with the general 
tendencies of scientific thought. The ancients were un- 
acquainted with the art of cutting diamonds. According 
to Balzac, it was in searching how to make gold that 
learned men unconsciously created chemistry. Much to 
his regret, Darwin found that his devotion to scientific 



370 LITERARY BREVITIES 

research killed all his natural love for music and poetry. 
Julius Caesar, in 46 B.C., brought Egyptian astronomers 
to Rome, to reform the calendar; this particular year was 
increased to fifteen months — 445 days. We are told of a 
professor who, in the fantastic days of geology, explained 
the Pyramids of Egypt to be the remains of a volcanic 
eruption, which had forced its way upwards by a slow and 
stately motion; that the hieroglyphics are crystalline for- 
mations; and that the shaft of the Great Pyramid is the 
air hole of the volcano. Until Galileo, born in 1564, no one 
believed in the earth's diurnal rotation on its axis; until 
Harvey, born fourteen years later, no one believed in the 
circulation of the blood. Montaigne remarks concerning 
the value of experimenting, that we must push against a 
door to ascertain that it is bolted. The ancient philoso- 
phers ascribed all sciences to the Muses, females; all 
sweetness and morality to the Graces, as stated by James 
Howell. The bodies of persons poisoned with arsenic, it 
has been noted by some one, are in death preserved by the 
very thing that caused their death. Charles XII of 
Sweden wanted to alter the method of counting by tens, 
and to substitute in its place sixty-four, because that 
number contains both a square and a cube, and being 
divided by two is reducible to a unit. A drop of prussic 
acid is harmless in a bucket of water. William James 
tells us, that matter is not that which produces conscious- 
ness, but that which limits it, and confines its intensity 
within certain limits. The same writer calls our science 
a drop, our ignorance a sea. About 600 B.C., Glaucus of 
Chios discovered the art of welding iron. A large and a 
small fire in the same spot, says Bacon, tend mutually to 
increase each other's heat, but luke-warm water poured 
into boiling water cools it. The infusion of blood was, in 
1492, for the first time tried, in the case of a human being, 



SECRETS 371 

on Pope Innocent VIII; the experiment did not save the 
Pope's life, although it cost three boys their lives. One 
drop of vinegar destroys a whole cask of honey. In 
Florence and Pisa, four hundred years ago, criminals were 
vivisected as brutes are today. Huxley thought sixty 
the age at which men of science ought to be strangled. 
Trained and organized common sense, is Huxley's defini- 
tion of science. Cotton Mather was the first person in the 
English-speaking world to practise inoculation for small- 
pox. Gibbon informs us, that the age of science has 
generally been the age of military virtue and success. Sir 
Arthur Helps predicts the coming of a day when there will 
be acquired the knowledge of the means of creating a 
pestilence. A certain one in Dante's purgatory boasts of 
coming from a city whence doth every science scintillate. 
Difficile est de scientiis inscienter loqui, is anonymous. 
Figures of most angles do nearest approach unto circles, 
which have no angles at all, says Sir Thomas Browne. 

SECRETS 

THREE can keep a secret, says Franklin, if two are 
dead. Philippides, being asked by King Lysima- 
chus what of his estate he should bestow upon him, 
answered, "Whatever you will provided it be none of 
your secrets." It is an observation of Chesterfield, that 
little secrets are commonly told you, but great ones are 
generally kept. William IV, in a speech to Freemasons, 
said, " Gentlemen, if my love for you equaled my ignorance 
of everything concerning you, it would be unbounded." 
A character in one of Congreve's plays declares, that a 
woman is exceeding good to keep a secret, for, though she 
should tell, yet she is not to be believed. There are 
secrets which are fatal to those who possess them, says 



372 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Eugene Sue. The sea is a famous keeper of secrets, re- 
marks Balzac. That which I would keep a secret, says 
Erasmus, I tell to no man. Lessing thinks what one 
has told to one's friend he has told to no one. Bulwer 
asserts, that he from whom a woman can extract a secret 
will never be fit for public life. Some one has observed, 
that a secret is too much for one, too little for three, and 
enough for two. There is as much responsibility, says 
Helps, in imparting your secrets as in keeping those of 
your neighbor. 

SELF-CONCEIT 

HAYDON mentions one Sammons, who always 
seemed astonished that the battle of Waterloo had 
been gained and he not present. Self-love, says Goethe, 
exaggerates our faults as well as our virtues. Father 
Newman mentions one who is sui similis. Egotism, says 
Sarah Orne Jewett, is the best part of a man after eighty. 
Francis, the author of Junius, impudently wrote to Burke, 
"I wish you would let me teach you to write English." 
Sir Thomas Browne asserts, that he who discommendeth 
others, obliquely commendeth himself. Congreve asked 
Voltaire to look upon him, not as an author, but as 
a gentleman; and drew from Voltaire in reply, that 
had Congreve been so unfortunate as to be simply a gen- 
tleman, he should not have troubled himself to wait 
upon him. Bentley was so foolish as to attempt emen- 
dations of " Paradise Lost." A confident man who had 
never played the fiddle, said he had no doubt he could if 
he tried. It is an evil recklessness, observes Benson, not 
to weigh one's own deficiences. 



SELF-CONFIDENCE 373 

SELF-CONFIDENCE 

WHEN it was reported to Grant, during a battle in 
the Wilderness, that one of the wings of his army 
was routed, he said, "I don't believe it," and went on 
whittling. Eagles fly alone; sheep herd together, is a 
remark of Sir Philip Sidney. Cicero thinks it not only 
arrogant, but profligate, for a man to disregard the world's 
opinion of himself. It has been noted, that Victor Hugo 
had the valuable trait of believing profoundly in himself. 
Balzac speaks of men so great as not to be afraid to confess 
their weakness. We are the victims of our own superiority, 
observes Balzac. When Thackeray had written a passage 
which particularly pleased him, he would put on his hat 
and rush out to find some friend to whom to read it. Le 
Sage speaks of one who polished up the brass on his fore- 
head a little. He who is sure of his own motives, says 
Goethe, can with confidence advance or retreat. Some 
one tells of a man who had the cheek of a Corinthian. 
According to Scott, there is no better antidote against 
entertaining too high an opinion of others than having an 
excellent one of ourselves at the very same time. Jtuskin 
would make the first of possessions self-possession. The 
man that stands by himself, says Emerson, the universe 
stands by him also. A strong tree wants no wreath about 
its trunk, is a remark of Browning. Mrs. Oliphant ob- 
serves, that it is well that every man should learn that his 
own exertions are his only trust. George Meredith con- 
fesses, that he lays himself open to the charge of feeling 
his position weak every time he abuses the contrary one. 
Goethe said his opinion on any matter was immensely 
strengthened if he found it accepted by one fellow-creature. 
To every bad, says Bulwer, there is a worse. Louis XIV 
thought there were occasions when it was necessary to 



374 LITERARY BREVITIES 

know how to lose. No one can do anything well, says 
Emerson, who does not think that what he does is the 
center of the visible universe. 

SELF-CONTROL 

WHOEVER is in a hurry, some one observes, shows 
that the thing he is about is too big for him. 
George Eliot's Daniel Deronda has a wonderful faculty of 
standing perfectly still. There is never any good to be 
expected of young men, says Balzac, who confess their 
sins and repent and straightway fall into them again; a 
man of strong character only confesses his faults to him- 
self, and punishes himself for them. The ability to limit 
our desires, Madame Roland considered a proof of wisdom. 
Bismarck thought no horseman could afford to be always 
on the gallop. Goethe claimed, that when he had nothing 
to say he could hold his tongue. The law student, when 
in the garden, could conceive the cabbages to be scholars; 
but in the chair he could not conceive the scholars to be 
cabbages. It is a conceit of Bulwer, that if a hen would 
hold her tongue, nobody would know that she had laid 
an egg. It is an observation of James Howell, that Alex- 
ander subdued the world, Caesar his enemies, Hercules 
monsters; but that he who overcomes himself is the true 
valiant captain. Carlyle thinks the suffering man ought 
to consume his own smoke. It has been asserted, that he 
may hold anything who will hold his tongue. It is a 
confession of some one, that he is not over-fond of resisting 
temptation. 



SELF-KNOWLEDGE 375 

SELFISHNESS 

IT is a remark of Lecky, that men come into the world 
with their benevolent affections very inferior in power 
to their selfish ones, and that the function of morals is to 
invert the order. George Meredith speaks of one who 
would have to write selfishness with a dash under it. 
Henry James thinks disappointment makes men selfish. 
John Bright was one of the most unselfish men who have 
ever lived. While Scott praised Wordsworth's poetry 
lavishly, the latter would not say one word in praise of 
Scott's writings. There are times, says Balzac, when 
selfishness is a sublime virtue. 

SELF-KNOWLEDGE 

IT is a remark of Cicero, that somehow we perceive what 
is defective more readily in others than we do in our- 
selves. The following is from Burns, — 

"O wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursel's as others see us." 

Who knows anyone save himself alone? Thackeray asks. 
Hawthorne discovered the fact, that men are often 
ashamed of what is best in them. It is Lemaitre's notion, 
that self-love carried to excess prevents self-knowledge. 
Tolstoy mentions one whose extreme indulgence for every 
one was founded on the knowledge of what was lacking in 
himself. Balzac says we respect a man who respects 
himself. Kant eulogizes the true man as one who does 
not want to lower himself in his own eyes, as preserving 
and glorifying in his own person the dignity of mankind. 



376 LITERARY BREVITIES 

SENSIBILITY 

IF you want to keep people from reasoning, says Balzac, 
you must give them something to feel. Racine would 
have us pardon the tenderness of an old wound. 

SERVICE 

THEY also serve who only stand and wait, is Milton's. 
Who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, 
is Milton's also. Scott would have servants see and hear, 
and say nothing. 

SHAME 

HOMER was consumed with shame because he was 
unable to unfold a fisherman's riddle; Sophocles 
killed himself because one of his tragedies was hissed off 
the stage. Shame, says Bulwer, is not in the loss of other 
men's esteem, but in the loss of our own. The only shame, 
Pascal thinks, is to be shameless. 

SIMILES 

AS dismal as a mute at a funeral, is by Thackeray. 
As drunk as a Thracian. Bunyan notices one whose 
house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of 
savor. As ugly as iEsop or Thersites. Lenior quam 
pluma, is from Plautus. Unstable as water, is in Genesis. 
The attempt to make some people appreciate Browning 
would be like trying to make a savage understand the 
precession of the equinoxes. The following is from 
iEschylus, — 

"And like a ship with all its anchors out 
I must abide the storm." 



SIMILES 377 

As mad as Ophelia. As testy as the devil with the gout, 
is anonymous. As beautiful as the vales of Thessaly. 
As deadly as the month of May. As Chaucer loved a 
flower. As safe as a star in heaven, is Goethe's. As 
important as an undertaker. As mean as King John of 
England. Hawthorne describes a girl as healthy as a 
wild flower. He promises like a shoemaker. New truth 
is as heady as new wine, is Hawthorne's. As high-toned 
as a constitutional headache. As spry as Joe Ireland, 
the Yorkshire jumper. As hungry as a convalescent, is 
Balzac's. As comfortable as an old shoe. As dumb as a 
fish, is probably two thousand years old. He talks pro- 
verbs like Sancho Panza. As conscienceless as Iago. 
As wise in admonitions as Polonius. Welcome as salt to 
sore eyes, is Scott's. Virtuous as a briar-rose, is Emer- 
son's. As fearful as Plutus, is Burton's. The artist 
compared her involuntarily to an exiled angel remembering 
heaven, is Balzac's. As futile as biting your thumb at a 
blind man. As obscure as an explanatory note, is Poe's. 
As fit as a flea, is Henry James's. As fat as a monk, is 
Rousseau's. As sincere as a baby's smile, is Hawthorne's. 
Barren as the Harmattan wind, is by Carlyle. As un- 
womanly as a long beard, belongs to Macaulay. As pious 
as a life-insurance agent. As safe as in a sanctuary, is by 
Spenser. Cervantes speaks of hiding oneself as close as a 
lizard. The same again tells of one undone like salt in 
water. Balzac notes that Dresden is as quiet as a sick 
room. As barbarous and ignorant as an Armenian slave. 
As splendid as an Aurelian triumph. Balzac speaks of 
one as calm and composed as a bankrupt on the day after 
his assignment. Henry James mentions one who looks as 
blank as a pickpocket. The same again compares a cer- 
tain one to a man desiring, but unable, to sneeze. As 
thirsty as sand, is anonymous. Stupid as a millionaire, is 



378 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Dumas's. As incapable of blushing as an American 
Indian. As foolish as Antony to fight by sea. Roar like 
the groves of Garganus or the Tuscan sea, is from Horace. 
As pleased as a child at the appearance of the first snow. 
As easy as it is for a child to feel happy. Addison has a 
beautiful simile about the difficulty the mind has in disen- 
gaging itself from a subject long considered, — that it is 
like the tossing sea after the wind is still. A pretty girl's 
open mouth — the gates ajar. Tired as tombstones, is 
Browning's. As ambiguous as one of Cromwell's 
speeches. As sober as a camel, is Balzac's. The following 
is from Burns, — 

"Time but the impression stronger makes, 
As streams their channels deeper wear." 

You'll get as hoarse as a wolf, says Balzac. He could sing 
no better than an owl, is Thackeray's. As dead as a door- 
nail, is Shakspeare's. Even ministers of good things, 
says Richard Hooker, are like torches, a light to others, 
waste and destruction to themselves. That's as easy, 
remarks Shakspeare, as setting dogs on sheep. As silent 
as a pair of gamblers, is Balzac's. As helpless as an ele- 
phant, is Swift's. The following is from James Thom- 
son, — . - . . 

"Still more majestic shalt thou rise, 

More dreadful from each foreign stroke; 
As the loud blast that tears the skies 
Serves but to root thy native oak." 

I am like a creeper, observes one, I must cling to some- 
thing or die. Bryant has this fine touch in "The 

Prairies," — 

"Lo! they stretch 

In airy undulations, far away, 

As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell, 

Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed, 

And motionless forever." 



SLANDER 379 

Whittier speaks of "the slant javelins of rain." As hand- 
some as a vision, says Balzac. As cold as friendship, is 
Bonaparte's. As serious as an undertaker, is Bulwer's. 
With a face like a comic mask, is Balzac's. Of as little 
consequence as an egg-shell, is Swift's. As impossible as 
it would be to make a deaf mute appreciate a symphony. 
Lowell says he is as stupid as a public dinner. About as 
amiable as a wild boar, is Balzac's. As obsolete as selah, 
is Emerson's. Words unuttered are arrows still in the 
quiver, old proverb. As long as a Welsh pedigree, is 
anonymous. 

SINCERITY 

ROUSSEAU said of Robespierre, "He will do some- 
what; he believes every word he says." Nothing 
is more disgraceful, says Cicero, than insincerity. Honest 
minds are devoid of tact, Balzac observes. Sir, says Kent 
in "King Lear," 'tis my occupation to be plain. Heine 
observes, that with the most honest desire to be sincere, 
one cannot tell the truth about oneself; that Rousseau's 
self-portraiture is a lie, admirably executed, but still only 
a brilliant lie. Montaigne thinks it convicts a writer of 
some want of courage not to speak roundly of himself. 
Did you ever happen to hear of a pessimist sincere enough 
to cut his own throat? asks Lowell. 

SLANDER 

NONENTITIES are never slandered, remarks Balzac. 
Plato, it is said, had his detractors, who accused him 
of envy, lying, robbery, incontinence, and impiety. It 
is Mark Twain's belief, that few slanders can stand the 
wear of silence. 



380 LITERARY BREVITIES 



J 



SLAVERY 

EFFERSON earnestly advocated the abolition of 
slavery. A chained slave for a porter was common 
at Rome. Jefferson called slavery "the enormity." He 
who fears serves, is anonymous. Emerson was once hissed 
by Harvard students for expressing anti-slavery sentiments 
in a lecture. Heine calls silence the honor of slaves. By 
a provision of the treaty of Utrecht, England was to be 
allowed to supply the Spanish possessions in America with 
negro slaves. At the time of the forming of the Constitu- 
tion, all the states except Massachusetts and New Hamp- 
shire had slaves. The next voyage of the Mayflower after 
transporting the Pilgrims to America, was to carry slaves 
from Africa to the West Indies. Shelley refused to use 
sugar in his tea and coffee, because cane was produced by 
slave labor. It was the elder Cato's maxim, that a slave 
ought either to be at work or asleep. Washington, though 
the owner of slaves, never bought or sold one. Emerson, 
in his anti-slavery addresses, proposed buying the slaves 
of their masters, and estimated the probable cost to be 
two thousand million dollars. William Penn, like Wash- 
ington, died a slave-owner. It is probable that the 
importation of slaves to the United States did not 
cease altogether up to 1860. Gladstone's father was a 
slave-owner. A disturbed liberty is better than a quiet 
servitude, is anonymous. 

SLEEP 

HORACE speaks of swimming the Tiber three times 
as a means of inducing sleep. Scipio was a great 
sleeper. The following is by Sir Philip Sidney, — 

"—Sleep, 
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release." 



SOCIETY 381 

George Meredith calls a pillow the best counselor. Lessing 
possessed the power of sleeping at any moment he chose 
to close his eyes. Chaucer's woman never was idle but 
when she slept. 

SOCIETY 

LOWELL thought it delightful to meet a man who 
knows just what you do not know. We may gain 
much good by associating with people unlike ourselves. 
Madame de Sevigne was of the opinion, that there is 
nothing of so much consequence as being in good company. 
Garrick enjoyed being in the company of men greater than 
himself. Good books are good society. Victor Hugo 
observes, that solitude is good for great, and bad for little 
minds. Amiel makes all social difference turn upon 
money. I'll send you my bill of fare, said a certain Lord 
B., when trying to persuade Swift to dine with him. 
Swift replied, that he would prefer knowing his bill of 
company. Dryden made Will's coffee-house the great 
resort for the wits of his time. De Quincey asserts, that 
no man will ever unfold the capacities of his own intellect 
who does not at least checker his life with solitude. The 
French call a "bread and butter call" a "visit of digestion. " 
There is a great difference, says Seneca, betwixt the choos- 
ing of a man and the not excluding him. According to 
Macaulay, the general tendency of schism is to widen. 
Balzac declares, that between persons who are perpetually 
in each other's company dislike or love increases daily. 
Matthew Arnold has tried to imagine the feelings of 
Virgil and Shakspeare, if they had been thrown into the 
company of the Pilgrim Fathers. A club in New York, 
called the "Bread and Cheese Club," was founded by 
James Fenimore Cooper. Theodore Parker thinks books, 
nature, and God afford the only society you can always 



382 LITERARY BREVITIES 

have and on reasonable terms. In the society to which 
Swift belonged, the president was chosen every week; 
the retiring president treated and chose his successor. 
Swift loved to be worst of the company. It has been 
observed by some one, that when bad men combine, the 
good must associate. Hannibal himself was unmanned 
by the looseness of Campania. Every one lives in 
public in a country town, Balzac observes. It is a 
remark of Belloc, that great social forces drive themselves 
out of their own channels; that they undermine their 
banks. We shook hands with a routine smile, says 
William De Morgan. We are only at our ease, says 
Balzac, with our equals. Where on earth, asks Landor, 
is there so much society as in a beloved child? The 
Southern girl of the Old South, says T. N. Page, never 
"came out," because she had never been in. Nee tecum 
possum vivere, nee sine te, is from Martial. Keep with 
good men, and thou shalt be one of them, is by Cervantes. 
I am communicative, and do not like to enjoy a pleasure 
alone, says Madame de Sevigne. With an Englishman, 
Emerson states, an introduction is a sacrament. Fielding 
declares, that in England, particularly, acquaintance is 
almost as slow of growth as an oak. Some one has defined 
Bohemianism as plain living and high thinking; Philis- 
tinism, as rich living and low thinking. With vain people, 
Tolstoy affirms, one becomes vain oneself. Hamerton 
says an Englishman repels another Englishman when he 
meets him on the Continent. The same observes, that 
steady workers do not need much company. It is re- 
marked by Henry James, that a saint is abstractly a higher 
type of man than the strong man, because he is adapted 
to the highest society conceivable. 



STATESMANSHIP 383 

SOLITUDE 

THERE are few mental wounds, says Balzac, that 
solitude cannot cure. The world is too much 
with us, Wordsworth observes. 

STATESMANSHIP 

ANDREW JACKSON was the first who crossed the 
Alleghanies to take a seat in the White House. 
John Quincy Adams, when in the senate, voted against the 
Louisiana Purchase as being unconstitutional. Schiller 
refers to one as the "Atlas of the State." In warning 
against the premature agitation of slavery, John Quincy 
Adams said, "The most salutary medicines, unduly ad- 
ministered, are the most deadly poisons." It has been 
remarked, that the peculiar characteristic of Lincoln's 
administration was, that he never did anything so hastily 
that he was obliged to undo it. When John Adams, in 
1777, went as commissioner to France, he had his dispatch 
bags weighted, so that in case of capture they could be 
sunk instantly. James Madison was called the "Father 
of the Constitution." According to Sainte-Beuve, the 
historian is employed to describe the malady when the sick 
man is dead; the statesman is employed to treat the sick 
man while he is still living. Lord Chatham declared and 
avowed, that, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, 
and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of 
difficult circumstances, no nation, no body of men, could 
stand in preference to the General Congress of Philadel- 
phia. It was a maxim of Louis XIV, that empires are 
preserved only as they are acquired, that is to say, by 
vigor, by vigilance, by toil. Themistocles said he could not 
fiddle, but he could make a little village a great city. 



384 LITERARY BREVITIES 

SUCCESS 

SUCCESS at Marathon spoiled Miltiades; in like 
manner, Alcibiades's reception after eight years' 
exile spoiled him. The lame in the path, says Bacon, 
outstrip the swift who wander from it. The camomile, 
the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, is by Shak> 
speare. They fail, and they alone, writes T. B. Aldrich, 
who have not striven. Swift tells us, that the great turns 
are not always given by strong hands. Hawthorne asserts, 
that success makes an Englishman intolerable. Thoreau 
observes, that though a hen should sit all day she could lay 
only one egg. It is claimed by Greville, that a man's 
virtues are sometimes an obstacle to his success. It is 
no shame, says Seneca, not to overtake a man, if we follow 
him as fast as we can. Let those laugh who win, is anony- 
mous. Atterbury's enemies used to say he was made a 
bishop because he was so bad a dean. Great and ac- 
knowledged force, Burke affirms, is not inspired, either in 
effect or in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. 
No case is won till it is tried, observes Balzac. A majority 
is always better than the best repartee, says Beaconsfield. 
It is said to be sometimes an advantage to a man to be 
the subject of an outrage. The half is often more than 
the whole, says Hesiod. iEschylus calls obedience the 
mother of success. Halifax refers to Rochester as being 
kicked up stairs. In ipso limine victoriae stamus, is from 
Curtius Rufus. Nothing violent is lasting, Richardson 
observes. Little men build up great ones, according to 
Landor. It is an observation of Holmes, that our self- 
made men, who govern the country by their wealth and 
influence, have found their place by adapting themselves 
to the particular circumstances in which they were placed, 
and not by studying the broad maxims of Poor Richard or 



SUCCESS 385 

any other moralist or economist. Eminence in one call- 
ing, it has been observed, may fail of recognition among 
educated men of other callings. Eugene Sue pronounces 
the success that is difficult to be the most certain. If 
you are not too large for the place you occupy, remarks 
Garfield, you are too small for it. Gales that refresh us 
while they propel us forward, is by Landor. Landor 
makes Aristotle say of Phocion, "He conquered with few 
soldiers, and convinced with few words." Aristotle de- 
clares it easy to miss the mark, but difficult to hit it. 
Nothing emboldens one like success, observes Dumas. 
Non omnia possumus omnes, is from Virgil. Much dearer 
be the things that come through hard distress, is a line 
from Spenser. Not all of one's efforts can be successful. 
Do not rely upon good luck for success. Success implies 
enthusiasm about something. Happy, says Goethe, they 
who soon detect the chasm that lies between their wishes 
and their powers. The heaviest, Carlyle observes, will 
reach the bottom. It is Lincoln's assertion, that the 
leading rule for the lawyer, as for every other calling, is 
diligence. According to a Sclavonian proverb, it is with 
men as with asses; whoever would keep them fast must 
find a very good hold at their ears. Carlyle declares, that 
Richard III knew a man when he saw one. The maids of 
honor took great care that no mirrors were allowed in 
Queen Elizabeth's apartments. When the storks meet 
in Asia, Robert Burton states, he that comes last is torn in 
pieces. R. L. Stevenson wished to have inscribed on his 
tomb, "He clung to his paddle." Why jump off the lad- 
der so near the top? asks Charles Reade. It has been said 
of Marlborough, that he never fought a battle which he did 
not gain, nor laid siege to a town he did not take. Intelli- 
gent persistence, John Fiske affirms, is capable of making 
one person a majority. I attempted too many things, was 



386 LITERARY BREVITIES 

the confession of Napoleon. It took twelve years, Colonel 
Higginson assures us, to sell five hundred copies of Emer- 
son's " Nature." Faber est suae quisque fortunae, is Seneca's. 
One of Lowell's early lectures at Concord brought him the 
insignificant sum of five dollars. For every action hath 
its hour of speeding, is Tasso's line. Greatness, Hazlitt 
declares, is great power producing great effects. The 
mathematical line called asymtote, constantly approaches 
another line but never quite reaches it. It is the assertion 
of some one, that the man who devotes himself to the 
attainment of material ends is liable to find, when the goal 
is reached, that he is no longer capable of enjoying the 
prize. The example of great men is the best guide to 
greatness. The proverb calls attention to the fact, that 
the wren mounts as high as the eagle by getting upon his 
back. It has been observed, that this age wants men who 
can do things, not only well, but quickly. More than 
half the world, it has been said, thinks after it is too late. 
Pestalozzi says the only real help is self-help. If we miss 
the mark, Macaulay tells us, it makes no difference whether 
we aim too high or too low. It does not follow that a 
man is capable of leading because he is incapable of fol- 
lowing. When great the theme, 'tis easy to excel, says 
Euripides. Polisher needs precious stone no less than 
precious stone needs polisher, is Browning's. Goldsmith 
declares, that whatever employment you follow with 
perseverance and assiduity will be found to fit you. 
There's no story that can't be spoiled in the telling, 
Terence affirms. When a leading clinical practitioner 
takes a young man to his bosom, says Balzac, that young 
man has, as they say, his foot in the stirrup. I would 
rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by 
three dazzling ones, remarks Van Dyke. The following is 
Milton's, — 



SUCCESS 387 

"Who overcomes 
By force hath overcome but half his foe." 

A fear of becoming ridiculous is the best guide of life, 
says Beaconsfield, and will save a man from all sorts of 
scrapes. The same thinks it a great thing to make a 
fortune, but a greater one to keep it when made. No affec- 
tions and a great brain, says Beaconsfield, — these are 
the men to command the world; no affections and a small 
brain, — such is the stuff of which they make petty vil- 
lains. Henry James mentions one who calls himself a 
perfectly equipped failure. Greatness unshared, says 
Schiller, is torture; it was a burden, he declares, to the 
Deity, and he created angels to partake his counsels. 
Macaulay thinks all great men have been careful to sub- 
ordinate the talent or habit of ridicule. Self-confidence, 
observes Schiller, has always been the parent of great ac- 
tions. How often apparent complete success is the precur- 
sor of failure. Neither Cromwell nor Napoleon transmitted 
an enduring political institution. Power, Balzac remarks, 
does not consist in striking with force or with frequency, 
but in striking true. In playing with such a gamester, 
said Tilly, not to have lost is to have won a great deal. 
Keep thy shop, Franklin said, and thy shop will keep thee. 
The many fail, the one succeeds, is a line from Tennyson. 
Victor Hugo gives as a reason why innovations have to 
contend with difficulty, that few wish them well. Seneca 
thinks some virtues require the rein, others the spur. 
Plutarch remarks, that Coriolanus was always endeavoring 
to excel himself. The following is from Shakspeare, — 

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie 
Which we ascribe to heaven." 

Balzac speaks of one whose manner was marked by the 
confidence born of success. In private as in public life, 



388 LITERARY BREVITIES 

observes Madame de Stael, men oftener succeed by the 
absence of certain qualities than by any they possess. 
Once you fix the confidence of your superior, says George 
Meredith, you're water-proof. Heine observes, that 
everywhere in the world we see that men, when they 
once begin to fall, do so according to Newton's law, ever 
faster and faster as they descend to misery. This from 
Addison, — 

"'Tis not in mortals to command success, 
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." 

It is Hare's belief, that those who have light in them- 
selves will not revolve as satellites. Some one has wisely 
observed, that the applause of the multitude accompanies 
success rather than merit. It is a sarcastic remark of 
Hare, that some persons make their way through the 
difficulties of life as Hannibal is said to have done when 
crossing the Alps, by pouring vinegar upon them. So- 
bieski was a successful warrior, but ill adapted to the 
office of king; just so Grant was a great general, but only 
an indifferent President. There is no harm, says Owen 
Wister, in going from the tow-path to the White House; 
the point is, what you do when you get there. Sir Arthur 
Helps believes, that success in life is mostly gained by 
unity of purpose. Those who fail, William De Morgan 
states, get scant quarter from those who never try. Sher- 
idan's "Rivals," upon its first appearance, was damned. 
Benson thinks a disappointment is often of itself a rich 
incentive to try again. Never mind, said Lincoln, I 
will hold McClellan's horse, if he will only bring us suc- 
cess. It has been observed, that purely defensive tactics, 
whether in physical or intellectual contests, rarely succeed. 
Only one of Shelley's books, "The Cenci," went into a 
second edition. Balzac calls failure high treason against 



SUCCESS 389 

society. It is a remark of Bulwer, that the State coach 
requires that all the horses should pull together. Brief 
danger, says Landor, is the price of long security. We 
are told that the anvil must do its work as well as the 
hammer. There being no advice so judicious that it may 
not have a bad issue, suggests Richelieu, one is often 
obliged to follow opinions that he least approves. James 
Parton gives as the grand secret of success, the fact that 
successful men take one hundred times the trouble that 
men usually do. A man is never quagmired till he stops, 
says Landor. We are assured, that it is better to bear 
the difficulties than the reproaches of the world. Suc- 
cess, says Allan Cunningham, seldom teaches humility. 
Strive to concentrate yourself, is Goethe's advice. Ed- 
win Forrest once walked down to the footlights and said 
to the audience, "If you don't applaud, I can't act." 
To execute great things, it is said, man must live as 
though he had never to die. It is an observation of Hay- 
don, that you cannot do anything twice in life with the 
same effect. All beginnings are fine, as Richelieu thinks. 
According to Fielding, nothing more aggravates ill success 
than the near approach to good. That man is happy, says 
The Spectator, who can believe of his son, that he will es- 
cape the follies and indiscretions of which he himself was 
guilty, and pursue and improve everything that was valu- 
able in him. He that climbs a ladder, Scott asserts, 
must begin at the first round. Nothing is more dangerous 
than to aim at your enemy and miss him. From Lord 
Acton we learn, that bonfires that are good in the dark 
obscure the daylight. When Dean Stanley asked what 
he ought to do, Carlyle told him to do his best. It is a 
dictum of Lorenzo de' Medici, that he only knows how to 
conquer who knows how to forgive. These lines are 
Bulwer 's, — 



390 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves 
For a bright manhood, there is no such word 
As fail." 

Addison affirms that method makes business easy. Trol- 
lope thinks there is no merit in a public man like success. 
Despair, declares Richelieu, makes victims sometimes 
victors. It is a proverb, says Horace Walpole, that 
gold may be bought too dear. Daniel Webster's rule in 
fishing was to fish in the difficult places, which others 
were likely to skip. Says Dante, — 

" — not each impression 
Is good, albeit good may be the wax." 

Dumas tells of one who had risen so high that there was 
nothing for him to do but to descend. The following 
lines are Dryden's, — 

"But how much more the ship her safety owes 
To him who steers than him that only rows." 

How many men have been made great by their vices, 
says Bulwer. Dumas thinks it never a fault to arrive 
too soon. 

SUPERSTITION 

AMONG the Tartars today, as it was six hundred 
years ago, it is an offense to touch the ropes or 
tread on the threshold when entering a tent. Charles 
II touched nearly one hundred thousand persons for 
scrofula; whatever cures were effected were doubtless 
due to exercise in traveling and fresh air. Cornishmen 
eat fish from the tail towards the head, to bring other 
fishes' heads towards the shore. The Russian peasant 
covers up the saint's picture, that it may not see him do 
wrong. The reason for burying Alaric under a stream 



SUPERSTITION 391 

was to prevent his ghost from getting out. The German 
peasants have a saying, that it is wrong to slam a door, 
lest one should pinch a soul in it. The Shetlanders have 
a superstition, that he who saves a drowning man will 
receive at his hands some deep wrong. She interpreted 
it as people interpret oracles, — to suit themselves, — is by 
Balzac. Zola says miracles only begin when things can- 
not be explained. Augustus Caesar was frightened, 
if he happened in the morning to put on his left shoe first. 
Napoleon was wont to consult Madame Lemormand as 
to his future fortunes. When Timoleon was in the temple 
of Delphi seeking favor before commencing his expedition 
against Syracuse, a fillet intertwined with the symbols of 
victory fell upon his head from one of the statues. It 
has been remarked by John Fiske, that to untrained minds 
in all ages the substitution of a familiar and calculable 
agency for one remote and incalculable has had an atheis- 
tic look, and consequently it has had a tendency either to 
frighten honest inquirers or to induce their neighbors to 
burn them; and that this state of things has undoubtedly 
been a drawback on the progress of mankind. It is the 
superstitious notion, that neither witches nor any other 
evil spirits have power to follow a person farther than 
the middle of the next running water. If you see the 
basilisk first, you kill him; if he sees you first, he kills 
you. Huxley observes, that it is the customary fate of 
new truths to begin as heresies and to end as supersti- 
tions. Owing to some superstitious notion, Swift always 
drew up the bedclothes with his left hand. 



392 LITERARY BREVITIES 

TALENT 

CHARLES KINGSLEY said his father possessed 
every talent except that of using his talents. 
Weir Mitchell observes of some one, that he had a 
mighty talent for neglect. Amiel would have a man shape 
his arrow out of his own wood. I have no great talents, 
says Mrs. Craigie, so I must make the best use of my 
faults. 

TASTE 

A LOVE of tulips, Balzac insists, is an acquired 
taste. The same says gravy is the triumph of 
taste in cookery. According to Hamerton, color is a 
mere personal sensation, that differs with different indi- 
viduals quite as much as taste. Tennyson liked tobacco 
as intensely as Goethe hated it. Thoreau, being asked 
what fish he liked best, replied, "The nearest." Pepys 
was disgusted with "Hudibras," when he first read it, 
though it was all the rage. I lose confidence in a book 
when I find myself able to skip in reading it. Macaulay 
confessed to a liking for some poor novels. Thoreau 
found but little life and thought in novels. Offer a cow 
nutmeg, says Luther, and she will reject it for old bay. 
Some one has defined taste as the faculty of coinciding 
with the opinion of the majority. Gladstone read Rous- 
seau's "Confessions" with great impatience. It is not by 
his own taste, observes Macaulay, but by the taste of the 
fish, that the angler is determined in the choice of bait. 
Chesterton remarks, that the life of society is superficial, 
but it is only very superficial people who object to the 
superficial. We must not be too arbitrary in our tastes; 
we may chance to dislike a good writer; and we must re- 
spect the general taste. Lowell loved above all other read- 



TASTE 393 

ing the early letters of men of genius. A literary man late 
in life is quite inclined to read novels. I wish, observes 
Lessing, that the spring would sometimes appear in red; 
the everlasting green is so fatiguing. Petrarch's father, 
having found the works of Cicero which his son had in hid- 
ing, threw them into the fire, being determined that the son 
should give up his taste for literature and devote himself to 
the study of civil law. Carlyle boastingly declared, that 
he neither knew nor cared anything about Titian. Lowell 
thought possibly the reason why he liked Buckle so much 
was, that he disagreed with him so much. A man once 
applied for a divorce on the ground that his wife did not 
like Shakspeare and would read Ouida. How cherries 
and berries taste, it has been asserted, one must ask chil- 
dren and sparrows. It has been declared, that, in La 
Bruyere, thought often resembles a woman who is better 
dressed than beautiful; that she has less person than style. 
Balzac finds something in the art of wearing a hat that 
escapes definition. Blanche Howard thinks liking step- 
mothers is a cultivated taste. In reading, states Goethe, 
you throw aside the book if it displeases you, but at the 
theater you must endure. No good reader, declares 
James T. Field, ever outgrows Walter Scott. Emerson 
was never able to complete the reading of any one of Haw- 
thorne's stories. Lamb relates, that on once letting slip 
at the table that he was not fond of a certain popular dish, 
a friend at his elbow begged him at any rate not to say so, 
or the world would think him mad. A young man, what- 
ever his genius may be, says Macaulay, is no judge of 
such a writer as Thucydides. At this moment, affirms 
Goethe, I am so taken with Michelangelo, that after 
him I have no taste for even nature herself. It has 
been observed of Walt Whitman, that perhaps no man 
who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few 



394 LITERARY BREVITIES 

as he. We are advised, that a cigar once out should 
never be relighted. 

TEMPERANCE 

IN respect to the use of wine, Dr. Johnson thought 
total abstinence easier than moderation. Steele 
tells of one wHo urged with a melancholy face, that all his 
family had died of thirst. Cardinal Manning practised 
total abstinence rigorously all his life. On occasions of 
religious festivals or friendly congratulation, every Greek 
considered even excessive indulgence in wine becoming. 
In the opinion of Lyman Abbott, there is proportionally 
more drinking and less drunkenness in America than in 
any other country possessing a similar climate. Boswell 
confessed, that on a certain occasion he had been "intox- 
icated," but not "drunk." A certain Duke used to say, 
"Next Friday, by the blessing of Heaven, I propose to 
be drunk." Weir Mitchell mentions a stream called 
Temperance River, because it had no bar at its mouth. 
The following is from Milton, — 

"Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape 
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine." 

Wine, says Schiller, invents nothing; it only tattles. 
Alexander was very temperate in eating, but infrequently 
drank to excess. As abstemious as a Hindoo, is Matthew 
Arnold's. The following familiar quotation is Shak- 
speare's, — "O, that men should put an enemy in their 
mouths, to steal away their brains!" Again from Shak- 
speare this, — "Dost thou think, because thou art virtu- 
ous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" It has been 
stated that Robert Walpole's father was wont to make 
his son drink more than his just share, on the ground 



TIME 395 

that no son should ever be allowed to have enough of his 
senses to see that his father was tipsy. The Spartans 
intoxicated their helots to make their children abhor 
drunkenness. This from Cowper, — 

" — the cups 
That cheer but not inebriate." 

Montaigne was before Dr. Johnson in asserting, that 
moderation is less easy to maintain than abstinence. 

TEMPTATION 

EVERY bird, observes Goethe, has its decoy, and 
every man is led in a way peculiar to himself. It 
is asserted by George Eliot, that no man is matriculated 
in the art of life till he has been well tempted. Balzac 
describes a woman lovely enough to bring the angel 
Raphael to perdition. Mrs. Craigie would have us be- 
lieve, that there is no strength so great and abiding as 
that which follows from a resisted temptation. 

TIME 
rnr^HE following is from Young, — 

"We take no note of time 
Save by its loss." 

The same again, — "Procrastination is the thief of 
time." The Ephesian temple, observes Carlyle, which 
had employed many wise heads and strong arms for a 
lifetime to build, could be unbuilt by one madman in a 
single hour. 



396 LITERARY BREVITIES 

TRANSLATION 

CC. EVERETT declares, that one who translates 
the poem into prose has touched the airy bubble 
and it has burst. The best in Horace is untranslatable. 
It were as wise, remarks Shelley, to cast a violet into a 
crucible that you might discover the formal principle of 
its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language 
to another the creation of a poet. The spirit of poetry, 
says W. J. Mickle, is sure to evaporate in literal trans- 
lation. Has not Dante himself told us, that no poetry 
can be translated? asks Lowell. 



T 



TREASON 

HE following is a translation from the Latin, 

"Treason ne'er prospers; for when it does, 
None dare call it treason." 



Themistocles the Athenian and Pausanias the Lacedae- 
monian, the most distinguished Hellenes of their day, 
both turned out traitors. This from Shakspeare, — 

"For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like 
Another fall of man." 



TRUTH 

JOHN STUART MILL once made the assertion, that 
the working classes of England were given to lying. 
Truth, Emerson affirms, is ever born in a manger. Mil- 
ton says a man may be a heretic in the truth. Heine 
observes, that the deepest truth blooms only out of the 
deepest love. Amiel is of the opinion, that an error is 



TRUTH 397 

the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth 
it contains. Locke approved of debating, only so far as 
it arrived at truth, and was not practised for ostentation. 
Whateley observes, that the variety of men's opinions 
furnishes a proof of how many must be mistaken. From 
Lowell the following, — 

"They must upward still 
And onward, who would keep abreast of truth." 

To speak in "broad Scotch" is to speak plainly. A lie 
was told by a certain king, whose citizens hearing it and 
not knowing what a lie was, asked if it were white, black, 
or blue. Lord Chesterfield, in defining a gentleman, 
declared that truth made the distinction. Lawyer 
Pleydell always spoke truth of a Saturday night. Balzac 
affirms, that all the horrors that romance-writers think 
they invent, are forever below the truth. Shielded 
and helm'd and weaponed with the truth, is Schiller's. 
Likewise this, — "A brave man hazards life, but not his 
conscience." Sir Henry Wotton's sentiment facetiously 
written in an album was this, Legatus est vir bonus peregre 
missus ad mentiendum rei publicae causa. If it comes to 
prohibiting, asserts Milton, there is not aught more likely 
to be prohibited than truth itself. Carlyle's father was 
a stone mason; the son always took delight in pointing 
out the excellence of the work done by his father. Lying 
children have often grown up into truthful men. I have 
something to tell you, says Balzac, which can't be sweet- 
ened. Dowden assures us, that even the devil, to serve 
his turn, can tell the truth. The only morality taught by 
the Persians is said to have been truthfulness, Joubert 
insists, that there are truths that must be colored to make 
them visible. Balzac allows that historians are privileged 
liars, who lend their pen to popular beliefs, exactly as 
most newspapers of the day express nothing but the 



398 LITERARY BREVITIES 

opinions of their readers. One of the peculiarities of 
James II was, that whenever his opinion was not adopted 
he fancied that his veracity was questioned. It is the 
belief of Bliss Perry, that amateur search for truth has 
always flourished, and is likely to flourish always, in the 
United States. From Shakspeare we have what fol- 
lows, — 

"For truth can never be confirmed enough, 

Though doubt did ever sleep." 

Gladstone is free to assert, that Charles I was no doubt 
a dreadful liar; that Cromwell perhaps did not always 
tell the truth; and that Elizabeth was a tremendous 
liar. When it was remarked to Walpole, that George II 
would not lie, "Not often" was Walpole's reply. Wal- 
pole said to an insolent Hanoverian hanger-on of George 
I, Mentiris impudentissime. Tell the truth and shame 
the devil, is from Shakspeare. Days that are to come, 
we have been told, are wisest witnesses. In the opinion 
of Chesterfield, the heart never grows better with age; 
a young liar will be an old one. The following are Bry- 
ant's famous lines, — 

"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; 
The eternal years of God are hers; 
But error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
And dies amid his worshippers." 

Scott observes, that when truth is spoken for the purpose 
of deceiving, it is little better than a lie in disguise. Noth- 
ing is great, says Lessing, which is not true. Says 
Byron, — 

"The devil speaks truth much oftener than he's deemed; 
He hath an ignorant audience." 

It is difficult, Rousseau observes, to think nobly when 
we think for a livelihood; to be able to dare even to speak 



TRUTH 399 

great truths, an author must be independent of success. 
For truth is stronger than a tyrant's sword, is by Sopho- 
cles. In truth lives beauty, says Browning. So this 
from the same, - « Mom . g breaking there _ 

The granite ridge pricks through the mist, turns gold 
As wrong turns right." 

Plutarch calls truth the greatest good man can receive, 
and the goodliest blessing that God can give. Truth has 
an accent of its own, claims Eugene Sue. Logic, says 
Macaulay, admits of no compromise. A man who really 
loves truth, Bishop Butler affirms, is almost as rare in 
the world as a black swan. A gentleman is a man of 
truth, according to Emerson. Jefferson declared there 
was nothing true in the newspapers but the advertise- 
ments. Bishop Butler, before leaving school, wrote to 
a friend, "I intend to make truth the business of my life." 
Nothing so endures, Carlyle asserts, as a truly spoken 
word. Among the gods, they say, Rumor always tells 
the truth. When the brains are out, Carlyle says, para- 
phrasing Shakspeare, an absurdity will die. Hawthorne 
pronounces a forced smile uglier than a frown. The 
highest perfection of human reason, observes Pascal, 
is to know that there is an infinity of truth beyond its 
reach. The boys at Rugby used to say it was a shame to 
tell Arnold a lie — he always believed one. This from 
Wordsworth, — 

"How verse may build a princely throne 
On humble truth." 

Shaftesbury thought ridicule the test of truth. William 
James insists, that truth is made largely out of previous 
truths; that men's beliefs at any time are so much experi- 
ence funded. Thackeray is generous enough to think, 
that it is by believing themselves in the right, that men 



400 LITERARY BREVITIES 

have perpetrated nine-tenths of the tyranny of this world. 
It is a statement of Heine, that Lessing could do every- 
thing for truth except lie for it. Lecky thinks it a moral 
duty to pursue truth, whether it leads to pleasure or 
pain. All are madmen, asserts Landor, who draw out 
hidden truths. Tolstoy thinks no truth presents itself 
alike to any two men. According to J. B. Crozier, the 
deepest truths can often be got out of the poorest and 
simplest materials. Benson insists, that absolute truth 
is not the property of any creed or school or nation; that 
the whole lesson of history is the lesson of the danger of 
affirmation. Error is not to be advanced by perspicacity, 
says Addison. Benson thinks boys, as a rule, are not 
truthful. 

TYRANNY 

THE Roman Emperor Caligula expressed a wish, 
that the Roman people had but a single neck, that 
he might strike it off at a single blow. Seneca thinks 
it a dangerous office to give good advice to intemperate 
princes. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience, to God, is 
a dictum of Franklin. Marsyas, for dreaming that he had 
killed Dionysius, was ordered by Dionysius to be killed. 
Qui praesentes metuunt, in absentia hostes erunt, is from 
Quintus Curtius. Holmes always, when in England, felt 
as if English servants expected to be trampled on. There 
is an old saying, that whoever takes a child gets a master. 
Macaulay remarks, that those who trample on the help- 
less are disposed to cringe to the powerful. Poe has ob- 
served, that if there is on earth a supreme and unqualified 
despotism, it is the despotism of a master mind in boy- 
hood, over the less energetic spirits of its companions. 
To swell the taxes levied upon the Gauls, who paid a cer- 
tain sum each month, an enterprising Gallic captive whom 



USE 401 

Caesar left in Gaul to exact the greatest possible tribute, 
added two months to the year, making the number four- 
teen instead of twelve. Balzac speaks of the tyranny 
of an all-absorbing thought. The Persian Sapor held as 
a prisoner the Roman Emperor Valerian, and every time 
he mounted his horse he put his foot on the neck of a 
Roman emperor. The worst of all tyrannies, De Tocque- 
ville remarks, is the tyranny of cowards. 

UNFILIAL SPIRIT 

AN evil more severe and rude than age or sickness, 
observes Theognis, is dealt to him who rears 
a thankless offspring. We are told of a heart- 
less rascal who would be capable of turning his father's 
bones into dominoes. Balzac speaks of lending money to 
a Chinaman, and taking the body of his father for secur- 
ity. Neither Cicero nor John Stuart Mill once mentions 
his mother in any part of his writings. From Shakspeare 
we have this, — 

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
To have a thankless child." 

USE 

THE bow must not be bent too much nor too 
long, says William Black, but bent it must 
be and not a useless stick. The used key is always 
bright, remarks Franklin. It is a statement of Junius, 
that the feather lhat adorns the royal bird supports its 
flight; that if you strip him of his plumage you fix him 
to the earth. If a thing is kept seven years, says the 
proverb, some use will be found for it. The Duke of 
Norfolk, when betrayed by his supposed friend, de- 



402 LITERARY BREVITIES 

clared, that knowing how to distrust is the only sinew of 
wisdom. 

VERSATILITY 

CICERO thinks Plato might have been a Demos- 
thenes, or Demosthenes a Plato; Aristotle an 
Isocrates, or Isocrates an Aristotle. John Tyler 
was a skilful violin player. Joseph Jefferson was an 
actor, an author, and a painter. Sophocles held the rank 
of general as a colleague of Pericles and Thucydides. 
Bryant was an expert botanist. Father Newman played 
the violin. Charles V thought the man who understands 
four languages worth four men. George Eliot was a thor- 
ough musician, being especially proficient as a pianist. 



v 



VIRTUE 

IRTUE'S beyond the reach of fate, some one 
observes. The following is from Milton, — 

"Goodness thinks no ill 
Where no ill seems." 



Some one has remarked, that military virtues receive more 
of applause than virtues of any other kind. Alison thinks 
characters of imperfect goodness constitute the great 
majority of mankind. La Rochefoucauld would have it, 
that our virtues are often only our vices in disguise. It 
is of great importance, says Sydney Smith, to keep 
public opinion on the side of virtue. Balzac declares vir- 
tue based on reasons to be invincible. This from Shak- 
speare, — "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good 
and ill together; our virtues would be proud, if our faults 
whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they 
were not cherished by our virtues." Landor calls time and 



VIRTUE 403 

virtue the only losses that are irrevocable. The following 

is Wordsworth's, — 

"The good die first, 

And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust 

Burn to the socket." 

Gibbon thinks real virtue is sometimes excited by unde- 
served applause. From Shakspeare this, — "Men's evil 
manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water." 
It is a remark of Thoreau, that there is no odor so bad 
as that which arises from goodness tainted. Seneca thinks 
it hard for a man to be both popular and virtuous. Ac- 
cording to Chesterfield, conscious virtue is the only solid 
foundation of all happiness. The zenith of all virtue is 
resignation, Balzac thinks. Bacon calls blushing the 
livery of virtue. Virtue, observes Balzac, considers 
herself so beautiful that she may dispense with the cul- 
tivation of charm. True virtue, says Gibbon, is placed 
at an equal distance between the opposite vices. Dry- 
den speaks of one who seldom does good with good inten- 
tion. Steele calls glory nothing but the shadow of 
virtue. If virtue leads to conduct, observes Joubert, con- 
duct leads to virtue. Macaulay thinks it the highest 
proof of virtue to possess boundless power without abus- 
ing it. Emerson regards a series of humble efforts more 
meritorious than solitary miracles of virtue. It is an 
Eastern saying, that a good deed hath length of life. 
The virtue of women has been pronounced the finest 
invention of men. Emerson calls rectitude a perpetual 
victory. Money capital, says Balzac, can be spent and 
wasted, but moral capital can't. Quis enim virtutem 
amplectitur ipsam, praemia si tollas? is anonymous. Her- 
bert Spencer asks at what rate per annum wrong becomes 
right. Juvenal says virtue alone is true nobility. The 
following is from Schiller, — 



404 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"Virtue I know may often be severe, 
But never is she cruel and inhuman." 

There are virtues so splendid, as Balzac thinks, that they 
necessitate obscurity. Pascal would not measure the 
strength of a man's virtue by his occasional efforts, but 
by his ordinary life. There is no virtue like necessity, 
is Shakspeare's. Much virtue in if, is his also. For who 
so firm, that cannot be seduced? is Shakspeare's question. 
While thou livest, enjoins Marcus Aurelius, while it is 
in thy power, be good. There is no man but approves of 
virtue, Seneca asserts, although but few pursue it. This 
is Shakspeare's, — "The hand that hath made you fair 
hath made you good." This also, — 

"How poor an instrument 
May do a noble deed." 

It is the opinion of Seneca, that one may be a good physi- 
cian, a good governor, or a good grammarian, without 
being a good man. Landor affirms, that men, like col- 
umns, are only strong while they are upright. His good 
is — knowing he is bad, is said by Browning. Emerson 
considers all plus good, only put it in the right place. A 
good name is better than bags of gold, declares Cervantes. 
Few men, observes Balzac, deny themselves the luxury 
of some good action. It was Sir Edward Coke who as- 
serted, that corporations have no souls. It is a dictum 
of Talleyrand, that the love of glory can only create a 
hero, but that the contempt of it creates a great man. 
It was a declaration of Madame Roland, that justice 
towards ourselves is wisdom; justice towards others, vir- 
tue. It is only when we immolate self to principle, de- 
clares Madame de Stael, that we are truly virtuous. It 
is a statement of Sir Arthur Helps, that it is seldom 
given to man to do unmixed good. Henry van Dyke 



VIRTUE 405 

believes, that many a man has been worried into vice 
by well-meant but wearisome admonitions to be virtu- 
ous. It is easy to be virtuous on ten thousand a year, 
says Thackeray. When virtue is departed from most 
individuals, Robespierre observes, you will find it in the 
corporate existence of the people. Be virtuous and 
you will be happy, Whistler remarks, but you won't have 
a good time. Barrett Wendell thinks vice less various, 
far less individual, than virtue. Benvenuto Cellini de- 
clares, that virtues are rarely at home with vices. At 
Rome there were two temples, one dedicated to Virtue, 
the other to Honor; and there was no way to enter the 
last but through the first. Virtue, says Bacon, like a 
diamond, is best plain set. May virtue be your guide 
and fortune your companion, is James Howells' grace- 
ful wish. Honores mutant mores, nunquam in meliores, 
is anonymous. Hypocrisy is the highest compliment 
to virtue, is anonymous. All virtue is difficult, remarks 
Mrs. Browning. Lecky thinks the morals of men are 
more governed by their pursuits than by their opinions. 
The same tells us, that Rome produced many heroes, 
but no saint. The same again, — "In every age virtue 
has consisted of the cultivation of the same feelings, 
though the standards of excellence attained have been 
different." Enthusiasm, that virtue within a virtue, is 
the way Balzac expresses it. His virtues are obstacles 
to his success, Greville remarks. No virtue is safe that is 
not enthusiastic, says Sir J. R. Seeley. Stanley Hall 
asserts, that real virtue requires enemies. Were I as 
good as he, I should like to die, for fear I could not keep 
it up, is anonymous. 



406 LITERARY BREVITIES 

WAR 

IN our Civil War, Huxley sympathized with the 
North, Tyndall with the South. The Lacedaemo- 
nian soldiers sang war songs when entering an engage- 
ment, and marched to the fife; the other Greeks went 
to battle without music and without uniform step. 
Battles are often named for places distant from the 
place where the fight actually took place; Alexander's 
famous battle of Arbela was fought at a distance of twenty 
miles from Arbela. Wellington said Napoleon lacked 
the patience requisite for defensive operations. Spartan 
generals made no speeches before battle, but relied upon 
previous thorough drill. The Esquimaux never go to 
war. Bonaparte used to say, that one of the principal 
requisites for a general was an accurate calculation of 
time. General Grant regarded patience to be the first 
quality of a general. It is remarked by McCarthy, 
that if Count Von Moltke had been withdrawn from ac- 
tive service according to the rule now favored in England, 
the world would never have known that he was the great- 
est Continental soldier since Napoleon. Hannibal's 
army, in fifteen years, never had a panic or mutinied. 
In revolutions the rebellious party is usually defeated 
at first, as was the case with the Roundheads against 
Charles I; not so, however, in our civil war. The French 
Revolution was an attempt to reform too fast; John Adams 
calls it the work of a blind giant. John Fiske, speaking 
of the treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763, declares, that 
no other treaty ever transferred such an immense por- 
tion of the earth's surface from one nation to another. 
The gilded iron cross over the new entrance to Harvard 
College library was captured from the French at Louis- 
burg in 1745. They conquered in their very flight, is a 



WAR 407 

sentence from Thucydides. It was noted by Brasidas, 
that the enemy often has weak points which wear the 
appearance of strength. The same remarks, that to fly 
and to advance being alike honorable, no imputation 
can be thrown on the soldiers' courage. The same, 
again, regards re-enforcements always more formidable 
to an enemy than the troops with which they are already 
engaged. Napoleon's famous epigram was, — "There 
is but one thing worse than a bad general, and that is 
two good ones." Scott said twelve Highlanders and a 
bagpipe made a rebellion. The earliest naval engagement 
on record is that between the Corinthians and Corcy- 
reans, which occurred in the seventh century B.C. The 
Roman soldiers were trained to use heavier arms in their 
exercises than in actual battle. After Varus was defeated 
by Arminius, Augustus Caesar resorted to a conscrip- 
tion. When Alexander was building a way from the main- 
land to the city of Tyre, by filling up the sea, the Tyrians 
asked tauntingly if he thought himself greater than Nep- 
tune. There never was a good war, says Franklin, nor a 
bad peace. Louis XIV first introduced the uniform in 
the French army. Hannibal, Marlborough, and Napo- 
leon placed great reliance upon cavalry. At least twenty- 
seven foreigners served as generals in our Continental 
army. Units homo nobis cunctando restituit rem, is a verse 
from Ennius. In the battle of New Orleans Jackson's 
force lost only eight killed, with thirteen wounded; while 
the English loss was twenty-five hundred killed, wounded, 
and missing — a disparity of loss unprecedented. The 
Spartan was subject to military service until his sixtieth 
year. Napoleon considered Austerlitz, the "Battle of 
the Emperors," his most brilliant one; and that his army 
there was the best he ever had. Napoleon thought him- 
self superior to Cromwell, in that the latter fought his 



408 LITERARY BREVITIES 

own countrymen, while he fought only foreigners. Napo- 
leon thought a general should make much of maps. 
Whenever I was not present, was Napoleon's boast, my 
generals were defeated. Napoleon predicted, that Russia 
would some day conquer the world. Following are Emer- 
son's familiar lines, — 

"Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

Sir Philip Sidney says of one, that his defense shall be 
like A j ax's shield, which rather weighed down than de- 
fended those who bore it. Frederick William, father 
of Frederick the Great, is credited with having built up 
the first standing army of Europe. In all the great 
battles of Marlborough his force was numerically but 
little inferior to that of the enemy; while Frederick the 
Great, Charles XII, and Napoleon often won victories 
over twice or thrice their own numbers. England, says 
Alison, has not seen the fires of a French camp since the 
battle of Hastings. Frederick the Great and Wellington 
were both defeated in their first battles. Montaigne 
states, that there is no record of Caesar's having been 
wounded in battle. In 1776, Alexander Hamilton, though 
only twenty years old, raised a company and was ap- 
pointed its captain. Elis was exempt from the ravages 
of war. Lord Clive claimed, that he had called but one 
council of war in his life, and that had he taken its advice, 
the British would never have been masters of Bengal. 
In battle the Spartans wore red cloaks, that the blood 
might not be seen. Elephants were first used in battle 
at Arbela. At the battle of the Metaurus the Gallic aux- 
iliaries in Hasdrubal's army were drunk. Heine declares, 
that Lessing needed conflict for the full development of 
his powers; that in slaying his enemies he made them 



WAR 409 

immortal. According to Julius Caesar, arms and laws 
do not flourish together. Thucydides assures us, that 
war is the last thing in the world to go according to pro- 
gram. Says Shakspeare, — 

"Why then the world's mine oyster. 
Which I with sword will open." 

Balzac declares, that to effect a retreat with all the honors 
of war, has always been the greatest achievement of the 
most skilful generals. Bacon assures us, that the 
wounding of Venus by Diomed is the only instance of a 
hero wounding a god. The same writer informs us, that 
Julius Caesar had due regard to his person; that in great 
battles he would sit in his pavilion and manage all his 
adjutants. It has been observed, that war is the only 
school in which war can be learned. Some one has re- 
marked with truth, that good and courageous leadership 
means brave and victorious soldiers. Recruits, says 
Balzac, will laugh where the veteran soldier looks grave. 
In war, thinks Swift, opinion is nine parts in ten. Mi- 
nerva sometimes holds an olive branch as the patroness 
of peace, but oftener is armed with spear and shield. War 
cancels all treaties, Bismarck asserts. In England a 
foot-soldier is called a "gravel-grinder." JSschylus, in 
his "Persae," treated of the expedition of Xerxes against 
Greece, in which struggle he had himself taken part. The 
Dutch have had to contend against two of the mightiest 
powers in the world, Motley declares, the ocean and 
Spanish tyranny, and they conquered both. From Mil- 
ton this, — 

"Peace hath her victories 

No less renowned than war." 

There is no peace so bad, declares Richelieu, that it is 
not better than civil war. It is a wise remark of Leigh 



410 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Hunt, that the moment soldiers come to direct the intel- 
lect of their age, they make a sorry business of it; that 
Napoleon himself failed; Frederick failed; even Caesar 
failed. To defend Rome, states Sainte-Beuve, it was 
necessary to go and attack Carthage. Braddock, in the 
battle known as his "Defeat," had five horses shot under 
him; at the same battle Washington had two killed in 
like manner, besides having four bullets pierce his cloth- 
ing. Margaret of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII, 
assured the princes of Europe, that she would go as their 
washerwoman, if they would cease to war with each other 
and would combine against the Turk. In the great wars 
of the early eighteenth century, it has been estimated, 
that Ney and Bliicher were probably the best fighting 
generals of France and Prussia, and that they were, never- 
theless, absolutely unfitted for independent command. 
In the German army there is no bugle sound that means 
retreat. Thackeray tells of one as quarrelsome as men 
are when they are in the wrong. Mrs. Browning thinks 
the secret of being invincible is not to fight. Napoleon 
claimed to have fought nearly sixty battles. Napoleon 
was once wounded in the foot. If I fight against mud, 
says Luther, I am all the same covered with mud. It was 
a maxim with Farragut, that the best protection against 
the enemy's fire is a well-directed fire from our own guns. 
Spain carried on war with the Moors continuously for 
seven centuries, in which struggle three thousand battles 
were fought. To hurt your enemy, Farragut insists, is 
the best way to keep him from hurting you. They don't 
defend their men with walls, observes a Swedish historian, 
but their walls with men. It is recognized as a good rule, 
that it is better to attack than to be attacked. Hanni- 
bal, who knew how to conquer, did not know how to use 
his victories. Following are Tennyson's lines, — 



WAR 411 

"Till the war-drum throbbed no longer and the battle flags were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 

He makes a solitude and calls it peace, is Byron's. They 
sell the pasture now to buy the horse, is Shakspeare's. 
The captain who was ordered to take a file of men and 
destroy a certain bridge at Princeton, touching his hat 
to Washington, asked, "Are there enough men?" Wash- 
ington replied, "Enough to cut to pieces." Victor Hugo 
thought Austerlitz the most brilliant battle of history. 
The Romans never granted a triumph to the conqueror 
in a civil war. In the land force of Xerxes, when he in- 
vaded Greece, there were forty-six nations represented. 
The rich Greek, from Achilles down, served in the ranks 
as a soldier like the poorest citizen. Cervantes, when 
doing military service, was always a common soldier. 
Lecky informs us, that duels were almost or altogether 
unknown to the pagan world. Landor says, with sly 
humor, that if an English lawyer is in danger of starving 
in a market-town or village, he invites another, and then 
both thrive. George Meredith thinks the English beat 
the world, because they take a licking well. Frederick 
William's giant Potsdam regiment had in it men nearly 
nine feet tall. In 1870 the French went to war with Ger- 
many, having no ordnance maps. It was the belief of 
Kutuzoff, that before a battle there is nothing more 
important than to have a good night's rest. London was 
in greatest danger in 1803, when Fulton proposed putting 
the French army across the Channel in steamboats, and 
Napoleon rejected the scheme. The battle of the 
"Spurs," won by Henry VIII at Guinegate in 1513, 
was so called because the French in their precipitate flight 
used their spurs freely. Achilles's spear could both kill 
and cure. Balzac says one must sometimes slay to es- 
cape being slain. Our Revolutionary General Greene was 



412 LITERARY BREVITIES 

a Quaker, and was turned out of meeting for joining the 
army. Victor Hugo regards being too much on the defen- 
sive as pointing to a secret desire for attack. According 
to Rosebery, the last British king to take the field was 
George II. 

WEALTH 

A RICH man never borrows, observes Chesterfield. 
Why may not the time come when a single family 
— the Rothschilds or the Rockefellers, for instance — 
will own a controlling interest in the whole world? If 
money was coined round, says Balzac, it was meant to 
roll; if it is round for spendthrifts it is flat for economical 
folks who pile it up. Seneca affirms, that it is not the 
augmenting of our fortunes, but the abating of our appe- 
tites, that makes us rich. In 1685, one-fourth of the pop- 
ulation of England received public relief to some extent. 
It is just as easy to spend a large salary as a small one. 
The more numerous the property holders, the more 
likely that the rights of property will be respected. In 
the seventeenth century the poor-rate was the heaviest 
tax in England. Pauperi est numerare pecus, is Ovid's. 
A mere madness to live like a wretch and die rich, anony- 
mous. It is an assertion of Seneca, that no man can be 
poor that has enough; nor rich, that covets more than he 
has. A crust of bread, upon a pinch, says Seneca again, is 
a greater present than an imperial crown. The Greeks 
and Romans were hard money people; their languages 
have no word for currency or banknotes. Thoreau men- 
tions one as being rich in proportion to the number of 
things he can afford to let alone. The wealth that the gods 
give, says Solon, lasts. Bacon compares money to muck, 
not good except it be spread. Crescentem sequitur cura 
pecuniam, anonymous. Their money was made only 



WEALTH 413 

yesterday, is Balzac's. William III brought with him 
from Holland the secret of the funding system — forestall- 
ing the resources of future years. Bolingbroke declares, 
that public want and private wealth abound in all declin- 
ing states. Those who attend to small expenses are always 
rich, says John Adams. What madness it is, proclaims 
Seneca, to enrich a man's heir and starve himself. Nihil 
esse tarn sanctum quod non violari, nihil tarn munitum 
quod non expugnari pecunia possit, is from Cicero. What 
I see is mine, boasts Thoreau. For centuries, in Europe, 
wealth could ennoble anyone; in the thirteenth century 
nobility became hereditary. The only way is to be born 
rich, Walter Besant affirms, and so not to feel the burden 
of wealth. Milton says, — 

"Extol not riches, then, the toil of fools, 
The wise man's cumbrance, if not snare." 

If we take a farthing from a thousand pounds, Goldsmith 
says, it will be a thousand pounds no longer. The stand- 
ard ratio of silver to gold which Solon adopted was thirteen 
to one. Lew Wallace gives warning, that the poor make 
themselves poorer as apes of the rich. I choose rather, 
says Boccaccio, a man that hath need of wealth than 
wealth that hath need of a man. If you know how a 
man deals with money, affirms Henry Taylor, how he gets 
it, spends it, keeps it, shares it, you know some of the 
most important things about him. Burke, in a speech, 
used the Latin expression, magnum vectigal est parci- 
monia, giving vectigal the wrong accent. A man has no 
debts till payment is due, says Balzac. In the opinion 
of Lord Rosebery, more Miltons have been mute and 
inglorious under the suffocation of wealth, than under 
the frosts of penury. The familiar lines of Sir Henry 
Wotton are, — 



414 LITERARY BREVITIES 

"Lord of himself, though not of lands; 
And having nothing, yet hath all." 

Balzac declares a man rich enough that spends less than 
his income. Men who make money, Bulwer observes, 
rarely saunter; men who save money rarely swagger. 
The same writer thinks there is no advantage in being 
rich, unless one enjoys one's riches. The rich, says 
Belloc, the world over, have one appetite, which is for the 
sensation of novelty. It was Lincoln's idea, that wealth 
is a superfluity of what we don't want. Cowper thinks 
every man may be rich if he will. Carlyle's rich man 
was capable of lighting more than one candle when the 
king came to see him. Money, in a word, Gibbon affirms, 
is the most universal incitement, iron the most powerful 
instrument, of human industry. Victor Hugo believes, 
that no purse, however full, makes up for an empty soul. 
Turner said to a nobleman who was an amateur painter, 
"My lord, you only need poverty to make you a very 
excellent painter." Pitt thought every man who had a 
thousand a year had a right to be a peer. Panurge had- 
sixty-three ways of finding money, and two hundred and 
fourteen ways of spending it. He is rich, remarks Sir 
Thomas Browne, who hath enough to be charitable. Mon- 
tesquieu asserts, that the English value only two things 
— wealth and worth. The elder Pitt never seemed to 
have considered how important solvency is to character. 
Content is natural wealth, observes Socrates. It is an 
old saying, that a merchant never has enough until he 
has a little more. Theognis declares, that among men 
there are some who have their vices concealed by wealth, 
and others who have their virtues concealed by poverty. 
To be rich enough, thinks Dumas, a man must be too 
rich. 



WISDOM 415 

WILL 
QAMUEL BUTLER'S familiar lines are, — 

"He that complies against his will 
Is of the same opinion still." 

Steele thinks nothing ought to be laudable in a man in 
which his will is not concerned. No power, we have 
been told, so grows in us by exercise, or so weakens and 
atrophies by disuse, as the will. 

WISDOM 

NO man, Fielding declares, is wise at all hours. Whole- 
some is the wisdom that we have gathered from 
misfortune, remarks Landor, and sweet the repose that 
dwells upon renown. The wisest persons, in their own 
conceit, are those who have never had experience. Cicero 
calls prudence the safest shield. It is De Witt the Pen- 
sioner, who warns us never to put off till tomorrow what 
we can do today. The following is from Horace, — 

Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem, 
Dulce est desipere in loco. 

To know what you like, according to R. L. Stevenson, is 
the beginning of wisdom. It is a remark of Cousin, 
that one may be a hero at intervals, but in every-day life 
it is sufficient to be a wise man. Goethe warns us, that 
what can never be recalled, should not be done in haste. 
It is an observation of Joubert, that gravity is only the 
bark of the tree of wisdom, but that it preserves it. Dow- 
den tells of a poor mother who would not startle her in- 
fant when it was crawling on the edge of the precipice, 
but silently displayed her bosom and won the straggler 



416 LITERARY BREVITIES 

back. He who sets his heart on a great subject, says 
Bulwer, suddenly becomes wise. Wisdom is a fox, Swift 
observes, who, after long hunting, will at last cost you 
the pains to dig out. We are told by John Selden, that 
wise men say nothing in dangerous times. It is the 
belief of William James, that wise men regret as little as 
they can. Eugene Sue orders one to bring his full dress 
judgment with him. Wisdom comes with work, says 
Balzac. Sainte-Beuve thinks the art of wisdom and hap- 
piness cannot be taught. Beaconsfield says all men have 
their imprudent days; also that nature has given us 
two ears, but only one mouth. Ecclesiasticus warns us 
not to display our wisdom out of season. When the 
wise err, remarks iEschylus, their wisdom makes their 
shame. Von Moltke has been characterized asr the man 
who held his tongue in seven languages. Joubert allows, 
that the multitude are capable of virtue but not of wis- 
dom. Macaulay asserts, that the judicious are always 
a minority. Morley calls Burke the greatest of Irishmen 
and the largest master of civil wisdom in our tongue. 
The credit we get for wisdom, Euripides declares, is meas- 
ured by our success. The same maintains, that we should 
ever learn wisdom from the wise; also that he is a very 
master in his craft who can force fools to be wise. We 
are never too young or too old, in the judgment of Flax- 
man, to become wiser or better. It is a saying of Eurip- 
ides, that he who knoweth when to be quiet is a wise 
man; also that there is naught more serviceable than a 
prudent distrust. The proverb has it, that if you light 
a fire at both ends, the middle will shift for itself. Wise 
men are not always wise, Emerson says. It was said of 
Marcus Aurelius, that he never paid his debts in advance. 
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than when we 
soar, is Wordsworth's. Shelley believes we have more 



WISHES 417 

moral, political, and historical wisdom than we know how 
to reduce into practise. According to James Howell, the 
first part of wisdom is to give good counsel, the second to 
take it, and the third to follow it. The wisdom of the 
Phrygians ever came too late, is anonymous. Cicero 
quotes from Lucilius the equivalent of "the feast of rea- 
son and the flow of soul." Cervantes thinks it one part 
of prudence not to do by foul means that which may be 
done by fair. It is greatly wise, remarks Carlyle, to recog- 
nize the impossible. Coleridge defines wisdom as common 
sense in an uncommon degree. Prudent people, remarks 
Victor Hugo, neither hear nor see. According to Burke, 
wisdom consists in no small degree in knowing what 
amount of evil is to be tolerated. Nullum numen abest, si 
sit prudentia, is Juvenal's. 

WISHES 

HOWELLS wished he could have sailed with Colum- 
bus. The three most earnest wishes of St. Jerome 
were, to have seen Christ in the flesh, to have heard Paul 
preach, and to have seen Rome in its glory. Thackeray 
relates, that when a boy he used to pass a confectioner's 
shop where there was taffy in the window; he wanted 
some, but had no shilling wherewith to pay for it; that 
in later life he had the shilling, but did not care for the 
taffy. Buffon and certain physiologists affirm, that our 
members are more completely exhausted by desire than 
by the most keen enjoyments. We have from Shakspeare, 
— "Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an 
acre of bare ground." Thy wish was father, Harry, 
to that thought, is Shakspeare's line. There's small 
choice in rotten apples, is his also. He has most who 
desires least, is a saying of Apuleius. Bad desires cor- 



418 LITERARY BREVITIES 

rupt the fairest minds, is from Sophocles. The hungry 
sheep look up and are not fed, is Milton's. 

WIT 

IF one man in Scotland, said Dr. Johnson, gets £2,000, 
what remains for the rest of the nation? An Irish 
bishop confessed, that there were some things in Gulliver 
on which he for one would keep his belief suspended. 
There is a Greek epigram on a man with a very long nose, 
who did not say "God bless me" when he sneezed, because 
the noise was too far off for him to hear. The practise 
of slightly altering a man's name in such a manner as to 
indicate a habit for which he is notorious, is far from new; 
the Emperor Tiberius Nero, who had a strong propen- 
sity for drink, was known among the wags of the time as 
"Biberius Nero." Martial describes his Sabine farm as 
so small that a cucumber could not lie straight on it. 
A witty guest at a wedding saw "the bride thrown away." 
The Scot, it has been observed, keeps the faith and every- 
thing else he can lay his hands on, and, "like seasoned 
timber, never gives." A propos of Saul, the son of Kish, 
who went out to find his father's asses but found a king- 
dom, W. T. Harris remarks, that many people have done 
the reverse of this. Thoreau used to say he had traveled 
a great deal — in Concord. The Frenchman's center of 
gravity, Amiel declares, is always outside of himself. 
Charles Lamb remarked of a fat woman sitting in a door- 
way, that it was a shrewd zephyr that escaped her. Dow- 
den calls the gift of humor that happy adjunct of common 
sense. Henry James says of some one, that the number 
of subjects upon which he had no ideas was extremely 
large. A waggish friend asked the cadaverous Rogers 
why, now that he could afford it, he did not set up his 



WIT 419 

hearse. Upon Serjeant Butterworth's introducing him- 
self to Dean Swift, the latter asked, "Of what regiment, 
sir?" The gratitude of the clergy, remarks Smollett, 
is like their charity, which shuns the light. A Roman 
lady, having told Cicero that she was thirty years old, 
he said, "It must be true, for I have heard it these twenty 
years." Dumas alludes to "a drama of immortal dul- 
ness." Artemus Ward remarked of some of his audiences 
who were unacquainted with the nature of his lectures, 
"I was prepared for a good deal of gloom, but I had no 
idea they would be so much depressed." Coleridge once 
said to Charles Lamb, "Charles, you never heard me 
preach"; Lamb's rejoinder was, "My dear boy, I never 
heard you do anything else." In trying to pay a pretty 
compliment to marriage, one of Balzac's characters in- 
nocently gave expression to this double entendre, "Mar- 
riage is the end of man." He makes a foe who makes 
a jest, Franklin asserts. It would have made an oyster 
merry, is Charles Reade's. The Dutch are said to live 
in a country that draws fifty feet of water. Both Wash- 
ington and Jefferson are said to have lacked the sense of 
humor; though in one instance the latter is possibly 
humorous; when sent to the French Court, he remarked 
to some one, "I merely succeed Franklin; no one could 
replace him." A strong adherent of Jefferson, who would 
never countenance the reconciliation between Jefferson 
and Adams, when he learned that the two statesmen 
had died on the same day, said it was "a d — d Yankee 
trick." Emerson had heard of persons who make an an- 
nual joke. It is claimed, that in Virgil's "iEneid " there 
is only one passage that calls forth laughter. Old Dr. 
Parr had a mortal fear of the East wind; Tom Sheridan, 
who knew his weakness, once kept him a prisoner in the 
house for a fortnight by fixing the weather-cock due east. 



420 LITERARY BREVITIES 

The editor of a famous review found that it cost him much 
time to cut the jokes out of the articles written by men of 
science. That joke has gray mustaches, is Balzac's. 
Robert Burton wrote his "Anatomy of Melancholy" to 
cure his own melancholy, but without avail; he was 
moved to laughter only by listening to the ribaldry of 
bargemen. Dr. Boteler thought that doubtless God 
could have made a better berry than the strawberry, but 
doubtless God never did. Henry James depicts a woman 
as looking naturally new, as if she took out every night 
her large, lovely, varnished eyes, and put them in water. 
Petronius enjoins, "Pray commend this wine by your 
drinking; you must make your fish swim twice." Wit, 
says Swift, has its walks and purlieus; such a jest there 
is as will not pass out of Covent Garden. An Irishman's 
ghost returned to his sailor companions at Aden and 
asked for a coat, claiming that after Aden he had found 
hell cold. Robert Burton calls England a paradise for 
women, a hell for horses; Italy he calls a paradise for 
horses, a hell for women. Balzac tells of one who looked 
as though he had been buried and dug up again. Elbert 
Hubbard says that out West, even now, if you address a 
man as "Mister," he will probably inquire what you 
have against him. Camden said, "I was indeed replied 
to, but not answered." The climate of Scotland has been 
described as consisting of rain with showers between. 
Purblind Argus — all eyes and no sight, is Shakspeare's. 
One of these fellows, remarks Steele, is milking a ram, 
and the other holds the pail. An English regiment that 
had been raised among the lawyers was called the "Devil's 
Own." When the Duke of York was obliged to retreat 
before the French, Sheridan gave as a toast, "The Duke 
of York and his brave followers." She had not said more 
than she meant, but more than she meant to say, is 



WIT 421 

Thackeray's. It is Lysistratus who facetiously affirms, 
that when two parties are already of the same mind, 
they are not long in coming to an understanding. The 
devil, says Le Sage, would have no great catch in the 
best of us. It is all for their good, as the old lady said, 
when she skinned the eels. I don't suppose he has a hair 
on his head that is not mortgaged, is from Petronius. 
Some one tells of a speech thick enough to cast a double 
shadow. After a dinner at the White House, during the 
Hayes administration, Mr. Evarts was asked how the 
dinner went off; "Excellently," Evarts replied, "the water 
flowed like champagne." Landor calls banter the worst 
species of wit. Mere wit, like salt, says the Shakspear- 
ian Hudson, is grateful as a seasoning, but will not do as 
food. The same writer says Falstaff 's speech is like pure, 
fresh, cold water, which always tastes good because it is 
tasteless. The gravest nations, declares Landor, have 
been the wittiest; few men have been graver than Pas- 
cal; few have been wittier. Thackeray speaks of weep- 
ing tears of Bordeaux and gratitude. True wit, to every 
man, Landor affirms, is that which falls on another. I 
will not kill them, I will only frighten them to death, is 
anonymous. Hawthorne speaks of "liquid hospitality." 
Locke objected to going as ambassador to Prussia, because 
he was not a sufficiently hard drinker. Jefferson defined a 
lawyer as a person whose trade it is to contest everything, 
concede nothing, and talk by the hour. Theodore Parker 
said of Channing, "Channing hit the same nail every 
time, he hit it hard, but the head was downward." Weir 
Mitchell tells of a man with not enough blood to blush 
with. Balzac calls a man a "scoundrel emeritus." Lord 
Thurlow used to read Satan's speeches in " Paradise Lost," 
and exclaim, "He was a fine fellow; I wish he had won." 
Porson declared, there was no better exercise for a school- 



422 LITERARY BREVITIES 

boy than to turn a page of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" 
into English. When Howells expressed surprise that 
Bayard Taylor began the study of Greek at the age of 
fifty, Taylor said he expected to use it in the next world. 
Goldsmith said the French would be the best cooks in 
the world, if they had any butcher's meat, for they can 
make ten dishes out of a nettle top. "Remember you 
owe me a shilling, Pat." "May your honor live till I 
pay it." It has been affirmed, that a man who is fortu- 
nate enough to be born in Boston does not need to be 
born again. Wit and a strong will are superior to fate, 
says the Turkish proverb. There were many dry eyes at 
their departure, is Carlyle's. The unfeelingness of the 
human heart has, perhaps, never been more uniformly 
displayed on any subject than on that of the much ma- 
ligned mother-in-law; Montaigne, to show how fortune 
sometimes befriends us, relates, that a certain man who 
threw a stone at a dog, hit and killed his mother-in-law. 
An Italian affirmed, that the only ripe fruit he had ever 
seen in England was a baked apple. Ah, said Tom Saw- 
yer, if I could only die temporarily! Starr King's terms 
for a lecture were — F.A.M.E., "fifty and my expenses." 
A man inquired in a Boston book-store for an expurgated 
edition of Emerson. He's notoriously not from Boston, 
writes Henry James. The authorship of the following is 
unknown, — 

"Where the Rudyards cease from Kipling 
And the Haggards ride no more." 

A drunken fellow passing St. Paul's at midnight, and 
hearing the clock strike twelve, impatiently asked, "D — n 
you, why couldn't you give us all that at once?" Mid- 
shipman's half-pay is, — nothing a day and find your- 
self. When a physician advised Sidney Smith to walk 



WIT 423 

on an empty stomach, the latter asked, "On whose?" 
The following lines are from Chevy Chase, — 

"For Witherington needs must I wail, 
As one in doleful dumps, 
For when his legs were smitten off, 
He fought upon his s tumps.' ' 

And thought of convincing while they thought of dining, 
is Goldsmith's. Swift speaks of one so ready to give his 
word that he never keeps it. It is a dangerous thing, 
observes Elihu Vedder, for an author to establish at the 
outset a reputation as a humorist. Instead of calling cer- 
tain phases of character "too steep," Lang calls them a 
"little precipitous." Nothing went unrewarded but 
desert, is Dryden's. An English magistrate was fined 
heavily for committing a poor man to prison for "being 
in possession of a hare," it being proved that the hare 
was in his possession, and not he in the hare's. Bulwer 
pronounces wit to be but truth made amusing. The 
Van Hoorns are a God-fearing people, and they have rea- 
son to be, is by Harold Frederic. According to Wendell 
Phillips, a Yankee's idea of hell is of a place where he will 
have to mind his own business. In a gathering of law- 
yers some one having remarked that John Quincy Adams 
meant to be a Christian, Josiah Quincy asked, "When?" 
Voltaire incurred the lasting enmity of Rousseau by tell- 
ing him in jest that his '\Ode to Posterity" w^ould never 
reach its destination. It was Alfred Crow-quill's poodle 
whose tail curled so tight as to lift his hind legs. Sena- 
tor Hoar remarks of the scholarship of a certain young 
lawyer, that the only evidence he ever gave of classi- 
cal education was his habit of using the Greek double 
negative in ordinary English speech. When an insolent 
interrupter in a Birmingham audience asked Beecher 
why we didn't put down the rebels in ninety days as we 



424 LITERARY BREVITIES 

boasted we would do, Beecher replied, "We should if 
they had been Englishmen." Charles Lamb, in arguing 
against the common notion that it is a misfortune to' a 
man to have a surly disposition, asserts, that it is not 
the man's misfortune, but the misfortune of his neighbors. 
Once when a tradesman dunned Beau Nash for the pay- 
ment of a suit of clothes, Nash compromised by lending 
him twenty pounds. The elder Cato, speaking in deri- 
sion of Isocrates's slow method of teaching rhetoric, 
said his scholars grew old in learning the art, as if they 
intended to exercise it and plead causes in the world be- 
low. What follows is by Burke, — 

"Here lies Goldsmith for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel and spoke like poor Poll." 

The poet Edmund Waller wrote a poem in praise of Crom- 
well, and after the Restoration one in praise of Charles 
II; when Charles complained that the one on Cromwell 
was the better, Waller gave as a reason, that poets suc- 
ceed better in fiction than in truth. When a young man, 
in the presence of Robert Toombs, objected to Milton's 
"Paradise Lost," on the ground that it was obscure, 
Toombs replied, "Milton was blind, he couldn't see to 
write for fools." Some one has recorded the fact, that the 
Duke of Wellington spoke the French language with the 
greatest intrepidity. Charles Sumner was not good at 
repartee. Lord Monk asserts, that the Englishman is 
never happy unless he is miserable; the Irishman never at 
peace unless he is fighting; the Scotchman never at home 
unless he is abroad. Socrates, being told that a certain 
person was nothing improved by his travels, made answer, 
"I believe it, for he took himself along with him." The 
French poet Fontenelle was said to have as good a heart 
as could be made out of brains. Schlegel assures us, 






WIT 425 

that one half of the subtle wit of Aristophanes is lost on 
the moderns. Who originated the idea of one's wits going 
wool-gathering? A certain man was bold to commit 
highway robbery, as the decalogue only said, "Thou shalt 
not steal." Walpole called Goldsmith an inspired idiot. 
Whittier asked Emerson, "Does thee pray? What 
does thee pray for, friend Emerson?" Said Emerson, 
"WTien I first open my eyes and look out upon the beau- 
tiful world, I thank God I am alive, and that I live so 
near Boston." It has been claimed, that John Adams 
was less given to deception than Franklin, and that he 
never could have told a lie if he had met with one. Bliss 
Perry pronounces Voltaire's "Candide" to be the wittiest 
book of the eighteenth century. Heine thinks it a ple- 
onasm to call a Frenchman witty. No wit will bear 
repetition, Sidney Smith affirms. Stanley said Pitt 
died of old age at forty-six. When Brougham heard 
causes on Good Friday, Wetherill said he was the first 
judge who had done such a thing since Pontius Pilate. 
It was a remark of O'Connell, that Joseph Hume would 
have been an excellent speaker, if only he would finish 
a sentence before beginning the next but one after it. 
Gladstone, according to John Morley, said of the recon- 
struction of the income tax, that he only did not call it 
Herculean, because Hercules could not have done it. 
Gladstone alludes to a railway companion as more genial 
than congenial. From Shakspeare we have this, — 

"His reasons are 
As two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff." 

There is not enough leek to swear by, is Shakspeare's. 
"I hope, Mr. Rogers, you are not attacking me," said a 
certain lady. "Attacking you!" he rejoined, "why, 
my dear lady, I have been all my life defending you." 



426 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Truly a charity sermon, for it required great charity to 
sit it out, is anonymous. From Shakspeare this, — "He 
is a valiant trencher man, he hath an excellent stomach." 
I can see a church by daylight, is Shakspeare's. "I give," 
said Burns, "I give you the health, gentlemen all, — of 
the waiter who called my Lord out of the room." Rose- 
bery states, that Lord North, when a list of officers was 
submitted to him for the commands in America, remarked, 
"I know not what effect these names may have on the 
enemy, but I know they make me tremble." Carlyle 
said his wife had read "Sordello" with great interest, and 
wished to know whether Sordello was a man or a city or 
a book. Do in Turkey as the Turkeys do, says Balzac. 
Browning, when asked to explain the meaning of one of 
his darker poems, confessed that when the poem was 
written two people knew what it meant — God and Rob- 
ert Browning, but that now God only knew. A Flemish 
tiler fell from the roof upon a Spaniard and killed him; 
the next of blood demanded reparation according to lex 
talionis, and was told to mount to the roof and fall upon 
the tiler. A judge and a sailor laid a wager that the 
latter could not say his compass better than the former 
could say his Paternoster; the sailor won by boxing the 
compass backwards, the judge being unable to do the same 
by his Paternoster. The half-witted scholar, in the hunt- 
ing party, was told to be silent if he saw rabbits, lest he 
should scare them; when he espied a company of them, 
he shouted, Ecce multi cuniculi; the conies, of course, 
ran to their hiding-places; when his companions reproved 
him, he answered, "Who the devil would have thought 
that the rabbits understood Latin?" Balzac observes, 
that the best way to bring two wills into agreement is to 
take care that there is but one in the house. The boy 
at Eton, being rebuked for having so many errors in his 



WIT 427 

exercise sheet, and being taunted with the reminder that 
his younger brother could do better, replied, "Please, 
sir, he hasn't been here so long as I have." One more 
such failure, says Balzac, and you will be immortal. I 
have read "Sordello," affirmed Bayard Taylor, and re- 
tain (though with some effort) my reason. A happy 
marriage, some one states, is where the wife is blind and 
the husband deaf. Now we are even, quoth Stephen, 
when he gave his wife six blows for one. Great wits, it 
is said, have short memories. A soldier boasting to Ju- 
lius Caesar that he had received wounds in the face, was 
advised by Caesar, who knew him to be a coward, to 
take heed next time he ran away how he looked back. 
James I likened the Novum Organum to the peace of 
God, as passing all understanding. Chatham was a con- 
summate actor, Rosebery informs us; it is related of him, 
that whenever he met a bishop, he bowed so low that his 
nose could be seen between his knees. A soldier, panic- 
stricken and fleeing, was asked why he was running; his 
sense of humor did not leave him, and he replied, that 
he was running because he couldn't fly. Rev. John J. 
Breckinridge of Kentucky, an ardent Union man, was 
a bitter enemy of Rev. Stuart Robinson, who as warmly 
espoused the Southern cause. Upon his death-bed Breck- 
inridge declared he had forgiven all his enemies; when 
asked if he would be willing to greet Brother Robinson in 
heaven, he answered, "Don't bother me with such ques- 
tions; Stuart Robinson will never get there." When 
Bayard Taylor lectured in Indianapolis, that he might 
speak in the College hall, which none but members of the 
faculty were allowed to use for such a purpose, the trustees 
elected him professor of history pro tern. The old mari- 
ner, in a tempest, prayed to Neptune, "Thou wilt save 
me if it be thy will, and if thou choosest thou wilt destroy 



428 LITERARY BREVITIES 

me; but, however it be, I will always hold my rudder 
straight." It is a remark of Crothers, that artistic sen- 
sibility finds its satisfaction only in the perfect; that 
humor is the frank enjoyment of the perfect. True wit, 
says Addison, consists in the resemblance of ideas; false 
wit in the resemblance of words. Speaking of a lazy man, 
Le Sage declares, that the resurrection of Lazarus was an 
ordinary event compared to this man's getting up. Addi- 
son pictures a state of society where no woman was al- 
lowed to be married until she had " killed her man." 
Professor North prepared as his own epitaph, "Died of 
faculty meetings." It was remarked by Charles Napier 
in 1804, that most of the English generals were more 
obliged to the Duke of York than to the Deity for their 
military talents. Crothers thinks there is something mel- 
ancholy in a joke deserted in its old age. Swift tells of 
one who follows the law, but at a great distance. The 
parliamentary candidate claimed that his popularity was 
on the increase, for whereas his audience used to throw 
bricks at him, they now pelted him with rotten eggs. The 
praise of Sheridan's speech against Warren Hastings was 
in every mouth; Sheridan's servant, Edwards, thought the 
best part to be the closing words, "My Lords, I have 
done." A priest and a Huguenot minister, in Acadia, died 
at the same time and were buried in the same grave, "to 
see if they would lie peaceably together." Brunetiere, 
when introducing Masson to the French Academy, said, 
"Thanks to you, we shall now know the exact number 
of Napoleon's shirts." Thackeray calls eating with the 
knife "administering the cold steel." Andrew Lang 
recalls one of those hot days when you could have poached 
an egg on the cover of a quarto. Lord North, who cared 
but little for music, hearing a remark on the extreme 
difficulty some singers have in reaching high notes, ob- 



WIT 429 

served, that he wished it was impossible. A certain man, 
who had not spoken to his wife for fifteen years, being 
asked why this was so, said it was because he didn't want 
to interrupt her. Mrs. Craigie alludes to one who had 
just soul enough to be damned. When the dowager- 
queen Henrietta expressed to the court physician a fear 
that her understanding was approaching madness, he 
replied, "Madam, fear not that; for you are already 
mad." "Tom Sawyer," is the name I'm licked by, but 
those who love me call me "Tom," by Mark Twain. 
Captain Benton, ordnance professor at West Point, 
asked a waggish cadet how many pieces a twelve-pound 
shell would burst into, and received as an answer, "Not 
less than two." Racine's witty satire, against the courts 
of justice failed to make a hit until Louis XIV laughed 
at its humor; then all Paris began to see the joke. 
E. P. Whipple declares Webster to be inductive, Calhoun 
deductive, and Clay seductive. A Protestant pastor, 
who had a church on one side of a river in Silesia, com- 
plained to Frederick the Great, that a younger pastor 
on the other side of the river was drawing all his parish- 
ioners away from him; Frederick advised him to go and 
preach on the other side, and thus drive them back again. 
Lincoln tells of "reading by turns," at school, from the 
Bible, when a young fellow cried because he saw that 
"them miserable cusses," — Shadrach, Meshack, and 
Abednego, were coming to him again. An American 
Secretary of State, being asked why he did not promote 
merit, replied, "Because merit did not promote me." 
The Sunday School teacher, after telling the story of 
Jonah, asked the children how they supposed Jonah felt, 
to receive in reply, "Down in the mouth." May Sin- 
clair alludes to one whose word had weight in any dis- 
cussion of the incomprehensible. Walter Scott, walking 



430 LITERARY BREVITIES 

in the fields with his wife, asked, "Are not these lambs 
beautiful?" To which she replied, "Yes, boiled." Let 
us get on, sir, to the deluge, says Racine. Napoleon III 
volunteered the statement, that if his cousin, Prince 
Napoleon, should fall into the Seine, it would be an acci- 
dent; but if anybody were to pull him out, it would be a 
misfortune. I pity the man, said bibulous Senator Mc- 
Dougal, who has never viewed the affairs of this world 
save from the poor, low, miserable plane of ordinary sobri- 
ety. Heine loved his enemies, but not until they were 
dead. Thackeray had Story and Lowell dining wdth him. 
The fare seemed meager, as he chanced to have two extra 
guests. The cutlets, in particular, w r ere small. Thack- 
eray wittily said to Story, "Eat one of them, Story; it 
will make you feel a little hungry at first, but you'll soon 
get over it." Galiani disliked the noisy opera at Paris; 
when it was remarked, that the music-hall of the Tuilleries, 
to which the opera was transferred after the burning of 
the hall of the Palais Royal, was bad for hearing, "How 
happy it must be," cried Galiani. Tolstoy makes a char- 
acter say of a high-priced lawyer, "Why, he won't spit 
at you for less than a thousand roubles." Justice Story 
told a friend, that the Supreme Court denied themselves 
wine except in wet weather; sometimes it happened that 
Chief Justice Marshall would say, "Brother Story, step to 
the window, and see if it does not look like rain." If the 
sun was reported shining, Marshall would say, "The doc- 
trine of chances makes it certain that it must be raining 
somewhere, and it will be safe to take something," related 
by Ben Perley Poore. It has been said, that Rousseau 
would do anything for party, even a good action. Sainte- 
Beuve characterized Pope as — Mens curva in corpore 
curvo. Lord John Russell, a man of diminutive size, 
married a widow; he was called "the widow's mite." 



WIT 431 

The criticism an American bank president made upon a 
note offered for discount was, "This note ^looking at the 
signature) is bad enough, but (turning it over) with these 
indorsements, it is absolutely good for nothing." Of 
the manner of reviewing books as practised by certain 
journals, William Matthews observes, that all you have 
to do is to cut the leaves of the book to be reviewed, and 
then smell of the paper knife. When it was asked if a 
certain beautiful American woman came from that part 
of the United States where they "calculate," King William 
IV said, "Lady Wellesley (who was a Philadelphian) 
came from where they 'fascinate.' ' Sheridan said he 
had known many men who had knocked their heads 
against a wall, but had never before heard of a man 
collecting bricks and building a wall for the express pur- 
pose of knocking out his own brains against it. Sainte- 
Beuve and Dubois fought a bloodless duel; as it was 
raining at the time, Sainte-Beuve took his position, having 
his pistol in one hand and his umbrella in the other; when 
the seconds protested, Sainte-Beuve declared, that he was 
willing to be killed, but was not willing to be wet. When 
Dean Stanley, whose handwriting was execrable, was 
invited to dinner, his hostess was known sometimes to 
write back and inquire whether his note was an acceptance 
or a refusal. They used to speak of Washington's "grow- 
ing up to his nose." The Cambridge carrier, being asked 
if his horse could draw inferences, answered, "Yes, any- 
thing in reason." A metaphysician defined omnibuses 
as things that go in the opposite direction. The Irish 
shillalah has been defined as a stick with two butt ends. 
During our civil war a Universalist announced his conver- 
sion to Calvinism, because he had become satisfied that 
hell is a military necessity. If I should catch myself 
non-existing after death, De Morgan remarks, I should 



432 LITERARY BREVITIES 

simply die of laughter. A young soldier was called from 
the ranks to write at Napoleon's dictation; when the let- 
ter was finished, a shot struck near and covered it with 
earth; "Good," ejaculated the soldier, "I shan't need any 
sand"; by this witticism he gained Napoleon's marked 
favor. When Wordsworth boasted that he saw but lit- 
tle difficulty in writing like Shakspeare, if he had the 
mind to try it, "Yes," said Lamb, "it is clear nothing 
is wanted but the mind." Banter, Benson insists, to be 
agreeable must be of a complimentary kind. Bismarck 
said he was beginning to think that the best part of life 
is before seventy. Heine made the Latin anagram 
vastari from "Austria." Science, said Sidney Smith, 
was Dr. Whewell's forte, and omniscience his foible. 
Of Rochette, Bishop of Autun, it was said, that his ser- 
mons were undoubtedly his own, inasmuch as he bought 
them. Tell him he is an ass, but say so kindly, by Arch- 
bishop Tait. When the Duke of Newcastle told George 
II that Wolfe was mad, "Mad, is he?" the king replied, 
"then I hope he will bite some others of my generals." 
When the wife of Henry Clay was asked if it did not dis- 
turb her to have Mr. Clay gamble, she answered, "Oh! 
dear, no! he 'most always wins." Dr. Thompson said of 
Ely, "The place is so damp that even my sermons won't 
keep dry there." I have been principally engaged in 
dying, was the witty and pitiful remark of R. L. Stevenson, 
and you see I have made a failure of it. When the elder 
Booth was playing, a buffoon in the gallery noticing his 
bandy legs cried out, "You are a pretty fellow to stop a 
pig." It was remarked of the "Memoirs" of Genevieve 
de Bourbon, that they were sufficiently ill written to as- 
sure us that they were written by herself. The boy told 
his instructor he would admit the truth of the pons asi- 
norum without taking the trouble to demonstrate it. We 



WIT 433 

may live without Dr. Smith, but nobody can die without 
him, is anonymous. "I met a man just now who said 
you and I look very much alike!" "Where is he? I'd 
like to punch him." "Oh! I killed him." When he 
shakes hands with you, it is like being caught in a wind- 
lass, is anonymous. One brother wrote to another, 
begging him, in the name of universal humanity, to write 
so that at least each alternate word might be obscurely 
guessed at. When Tom Corwin, who in his speech was 
careful not to offend the abolitionists, was asked if negroes 
should be allowed to sit at table with white folks, he asked, 
his swarthy features beaming with fun, "Is it proper to 
ask such a question of a gentleman of my color?" It 
was General Jackson who once knew a man who got rich 
by minding his own business. The Earl of Kildare would 
never have burned the church unless he had thought 
the Bishop in it. An invitation having by mistake been 
sent to Sir Charles Vaughan, an Englishman, to attend 
a Fourth of July celebration, he politely declined as he 
thought he should be indisposed on that day. The physi- 
cian makes the earth cover all his faults, is a remark of 
James Howell. There was never any contrary minded, 
it was observed, when Mrs. Jere Burbank was in the chair. 
Nor is the hackney-coachman only disagreeable in him- 
self, says Leigh Hunt, but, like Falstaff reversed, the cause 
of disagreeableness in others. Talleyrand said language 
was given to conceal thought. E. L. Godkin remarked, 
that Henry J. Raymond was making a desperate effort 
not to get excited. Scott declared, that no ,four legs 
would carry a dog forever. Balzac speaks of linen that 
was anonymous. Dr. Johnson says in his letter to Rey- 
nolds, "Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with 
unconcern on a man struggling in the water, and, when 
he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?" 



434 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Lord Granville, when inviting Lowell to dinner, apolo- 
gized for such short notice to "the most engaged man in 
London"; in Lowell's note of acceptance he said, "The 
most engaged man is glad to dine with the most engag- 
ing." When Sir Thomas More was offered a pair of 
gloves containing £40, he accepted the gloves but refused 
the contents, saying he preferred his gloves without lin- 
ing. Carlyle alludes to a certain man's long-eared learn- 
ing and omniscience. A certain butler said he was always 
sober, especially when he had only water to drink. More's 
wit, declared Erasmus, shines without burning. A learned 
lawyer being asked if he understood Emerson's lectures, 
replied, "No, but my daughters do." Trollope tells of a 
woman whose favorite insanity was genealogy. That is 
epigrammatic and witty in Latin, Cowper declares, which 
would be perfectly insipid in English. Arthur H. Clough 
has the following, — 

"Thou shalt not kill; but neecTst not strive 
Officiously to keep alive." 

Sidney Smith's cock-sure people must be trepanned be- 
fore they can be convinced. A young girl described a 
certain notorious novel she was reading as not the sort of 
a book one would give one's mother to read. F. Marion 
Crawford, being asked by a lady whether he had written 
anything that would live after he was gone, said what 
he was trying to do was to write something that would 
enable him to live while he was here. Life would be 
very tolerable if it were not for its pleasures, is anony- 
mous. A part of the Russian marriage ceremony used 
to be, "Here, wolf, take thy lamb." The cook-book 
stated, that some crabs like to be boiled alive. When 
asked if he wrote "dog" with a small "d," Hans Chris- 
tian Andersen replied, "Yes, because here I spoke of a 



WIT 435 

little dog." Morrison, in nominating Milburn, the 
Blind Preacher, for the office of Chaplain of the House, 
won over all opposition by the following brief speech, — 
"Mr. Chairman, I present for the office of Chaplain of the 
House the name of Dr. Milburn, a man who loves God, 
pays his debts, and votes the Democratic ticket." When 
the Corliss engine was explained to the Emperor of Brazil, 
and he was told how many revolutions it could make in 
a minute, he exclaimed, "Goodness! that beats a South 
American republic." At a dinner in New York, Evarts 
was introduced as the "Sage of the bar." In his response 
Evarts gave utterance to this witticism, — "An hour ago 
you beheld a goose stuffed with sage; you now behold a 
sage stuffed with goose." "Sunset" Cox was wont to 
regret, that there were no more commandments to keep, as 
what few there were he kept so easily. A man running for 
office, being asked his views as to the comparative merits 
of heaven and hell, declined to express an opinion as he 
had friends in both places. Senator Proctor, in excusing 
himself for non-attendance at the devotional exercises 
in the senate, used to say he was paired with Blackburn 
on prayers. Some one declared honesty to be better 
than dishonesty, — he had tried both. "I'm standing 
on the soil of liberty," said the orator; "You ain't," 
shouted a bootmaker in the audience, "you're standing 
on a pair of boots you never paid me for." It is easier for 
a camel to get to heaven than for a fat man to go through 
the eye of a needle, is Heine's paraphrase. And why, 
ye gods, should two and two make four? asks Pope. In 
citing obscure writers, Heine would have the number of 
the house given. At the time of an exciting election, 
Macaulay was hit full in the face with a dead cat; the one 
who threw it apologized, saying it was intended for a 
Mr. Adeane. I wish, said Macaulay, you had intended 



436 LITERARY BREVITIES 

it for me and hit the other man. When Margaret Fuller's 
"I accept the universe" was repeated to Carlyle, he said 
after his gruff manner, "Gad, she'd better." I wrote my 
last letter, said Cowper, merely to inform you that I had 
nothing to say. The colored resident of Georgia said a 
black man had no chance in that State, as he was obliged 
to work hard all day and steal all night in order to make 
an honest living. Senator Hale asked Joe Blackburn 
what he thought of Senator Chandler; the reply was, 
"I like him, but it is an acquired taste." Asa Gray 
thought it great fun to be seventy years old, as you do not 
have to know everything. Horace Greeley was refused 
admission to Girard College, being taken for a clergyman; 
when he asked, "What the h — is the reason?" the gate- 
keeper said apologetically, "Walk right in." The in- 
toxicated student, as he stumbled and fell down-stairs, 
to the professor asking, "Who is that?" replied, quoting 
from his recent declamation, " Hohenlinden," "It is I, 
sir, rolling rapidly." Things may take a turn, as the pig 
said on the spit, by Hood. Carlyle calls Graf von Briihl 
who had a new suit of clothes for every day in the 
year, "vainest of human clothes-horses." Ices were so 
delicious, it was a pity taking them wasn't a sin, is anony- 
mous. Arthur Stanley, who was dead to the charm of 
music, confessed that the only thing that pleased him 
was a drum solo. Emerson, after one of his sittings to 
the sculptor French, said of his bust, "The trouble is, the 
more it resembles me, the worse it looks." Father Tay- 
lor thought Emerson must go to heaven, for if he went 
to hell the devil wouldn't know what to do with him. 
When the historian Charles Elliott was asked if he believed 
that Abraham lived to be one hundred and sixty years old, 
he replied, "Why not? he had no bad whiskey to drink, 
no primaries to attend, and no newspapers to read." 



WIT 437 

For fools are known by looking wise, is a line of Samuel 
Butler's. Brougham said the idea of Campbell's writing 
his life added a new horror to death. That fellow, says 
Dr. Johnson, seems to have but one idea, and that is a 
wrong one. It is a good thing about us Germans, declares 
Heine, that no one is so crazy but he can find a crazier 
countryman to understand him. The noblest prospect a 
Scotchman ever sees, Dr. Johnson observed, is the high 
road leading him to London. Heine believed that the 
compelling of the poor souls in hell to read all day all the 
dull sermons that are printed here is a calumny; that such 
a refinement of torture will never be invented even by 
Satan. This from Burns, — 

"Yet an insect's an insect at most, 
Though it crawl on the curl of a queen." 

Good sense and genius are reputed to be of the same 
family, wit being only a collateral. Heine would not 
settle in England, because he would find two things there 
— coal smoke and Englishmen. Haddon Hall, I believe, 
remarks Henry James, is one of the sights in which it 
is the fashion to be disappointed. Bliss Perry asserts, 
that "Who's Who in America" informs you of the name 
of a man's second wife. Whose volley of names, says 
Beckford, when pronounced with the true Portuguese 
twang, sounds like an expectoration. Owing to the poor 
acoustics of the House of Lords, it was said that the 
leader of the opposition was obliged to go out and buy an 
evening paper to learn what the government was talking 
about. The following is anonymous, — 

"The man, in troth, with much ado 
Has proved that one and one make two." 

A pun, says The Spectator, is a conceit arising from the 
use of two words that agree in sound but differ in sense. 



438 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Henry James declares the frequent use of capitals to be 
the only marks of verse in Walt Whitman's writings. 
To resemble Chaucer, rather surprisingly observes 
Henry James, is a great safeguard against resembling 
Swinburne. The tongue, says Butler, is like a race-horse, 
which runs the faster the less weight it carries. Solo- 
mons, who gave violin lessons to George III, once said 
to his pupil, "Violin players may be divided into three 
classes — those who cannot play at all, those who play 
very badly, and good players; your Majesty has already 
come to the second class." Sothern said to Booth, "The 
worst performance ever seen was my Armand Duval"; 
Booth gravely rejoined, "Did you ever see my Romeo?" 
I told the truth by way of variety, wrote Le Sage. He 
achieved remarkable mediocrity in several professions, 
anonymous. The good that's in him is incidental, is 
Howells's. When Dunning was stating the law to a jury, 
Lord Mansfield interrupted him by saying, "If that be 
law, I'll go home and burn my books"; to which Dun- 
ning replied, "My Lord, you had better go home and 
read them." The man who thanked God for his igno- 
rance, was told he had a great deal to be thankful for. 
The piper strutted behind them, blowing a trumpet of 
dissonance, is Scott's. From Goldsmith the following, — 

"The man recovered from the bite, 
The dog it was that died." 

Charles Lamb asked for a string with which to lead home 
a piece of cheese. He is at one with himself, remarks 
Goethe. There are two ways, observes Theodore Parker, 
of hitting a mark — one with a single bullet, the other 
with a shower of small shot; Dr. Channing chose the lat- 
ter, as most pulpit orators have done. Do not injure me 
so much, says Junius, as to suspect I am a lawyer; I 



WIT 439 

had rather be a Scotchman. John Holmes having ob- 
served that men are apt to shorten in size as they 
grow older, pictured Methuselah as he approached the 
end of his nine hundred years as shrunk to be less 
than knee-high to ordinary men. When Dr. Johnson 
upbraided Mrs. Thrale for being so polite to all the 
people they met in Wales, she retorted, "When I am 
with you and Mr. Thrale and 'Queeny,' I am obliged to 
be civil for four." Daniel Burgess, dining with a gen- 
tlewoman of his congregation, a large uncut Cheshire 
cheese being brought to the table, asked where he should 
cut it; "Where you please, Mr. Burgess," she answered; 
upon which instruction he ordered his servant to carry it 
home, for he would cut it there. The New Yorker said 
he had lost both his sons, one had died and the other 
had gone to Philadelphia. Thackeray thinks nobody 
ought to say that people in the country have no imagina- 
tion, who has heard them talk about new neighbors. 
The Chicago man boasted that his sweetheart came pretty 
near calling him "honey," when in fact she called him 
"Old Beeswax." La Fontaine's nurse said of him, "He 
is so simple that God will not have courage to damn him." 
Some one has remarked, that the style of Sainte-Beuve's 
letters is far superior to that of his essays, because he had 
not time to spoil it. His death will not add to the over- 
crowding of heaven, is anonymous. A young preacher 
who had occupied old Dr. Emmons's pulpit, looking for a 
compliment, said to the doctor, "I hope I didn't weary 
you by the length of my sermon"; the reply was, "No, 
nor by its breadth either." Haydon thinks there must 
be more malice than love in the hearts of all wits. John 
Hay thinks that one who has nothing to say can say it 
better in a foreign language. Narvaez, on his death- 
bed, being urged to forgive his enemies, said, "Bless 



440 LITERARY BREVITIES 

my soul, I have none; I have killed them all." We 
all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes 
of others, is an observation of La Rochefoucauld. It 
is much easier, remarks some one, for a woman to 
yield and be silent when she is in the right than 
when she is in the wrong. Addison speaks of a man 
who was more famous for his library than his learn- 
ing. It was claimed that a certain man would have 
been a good fellow, if he had not been a drunkard, a 
liar, and a thief. Negroes have been called the image of 
God cut in ebony. Sir Thomas Browne referred to acute 
diseases, where "'tis as dangerous to be sentenced by a 
physician as by a judge." Sit we upon the highest throne 
in the world, says Montaigne, yet sit we on our own tail. 
The country rector thought the professor might be in- 
clined to re-write the Lord's Prayer, thinking there was 
a sad absence of the intellectual element in it. Ev'n 
wit's a burden, when it talks too long, is Juvenal's. Bal- 
zac's woman had the bumps of Judas. Richter depicts 
a girl about to be married as standing on the scaffolding 
of joy. Chesterton refers to an educated upstart as a 
man who can quote Beaumarchais, though he cannot pro- 
nounce him. Though Hudibras applied the spur to only 
one side of his horse, he did not doubt but the other side 
would keep pace with it. Instead of ordering his driver 
to hurry, he told him to "burn the pavement." Agnes 
Strickland observes, that controversies between husband 
and wife are dangerous pastimes to the weaker vessel, 
especially if she chance to have the best of the argument. 
A bad man is not so bad as a worse, according to Bernard 
Shaw. Dumas's man snored like an organ. The same 
says we are never so slow as when we are in a hurry. 
Voltaire remarks of Dante, "He has commentators, which, 
perhaps, is another reason for his not being understood; 



WIT 441 

his reputation will go on increasing, because scarcely 
anybody reads him." To R. L. Stevenson, who remarked 
that every boy hunted for buried treasures, Henry James 
stated that he never did; "Then," said Stevenson, "you 
were never a boy." The lean poet put lead in his pocket 
to prevent his being blown away. To have debts, says 
Victor Hugo, is to have something. The same author 
accuses James II of practising mortification in the ugli- 
ness of his mistresses. People, says Addison, are natu- 
rally full of themselves who have nothing else in them. 
The following lines are from Congreve, — 

"Rules for good verse they first with pains indite, 
Then show us what are bad by what they write." 

Speaking of the weakness of the council of George II, 
Pitt deplores the ambition of being the only figure among 
ciphers. From Herbert we have, — 

"Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 
Like seasoned timber never gives." 

Diogenes said to one who spoke ill of him, "Nobody will 
believe you when you speak ill of me, any more than 
they would believe me should I speak well of you." Dry- 
den says great wits are sure to madness near allied. When 
Thackeray was leaving the Garrick Club one night with 
a man who was standing as his political opponent in the 
election to be held on the morrow, the latter said, " Good 
night, Mr. Thackeray; may the best man win." "I 
hope not," rejoined Thackeray. Charles II remarked 
of the famous Vossius, that the learned divine believed 
everything but the Bible. Some witty Frenchmen called 
them, "King Elizabeth" and "Queen James." Speak- 
ing of Dresden as abounding very much in snow, Addi- 
son affirmed, that there was scarce anything they met 
with, except the sheets and napkins, that was not white. 



442 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Senator Sawyer of Wisconsin, who became wealthy in 
the lumber business, at one time even having been a 
practical sawyer, adorned his carriage with the Latin 
motto, Vidi, "I saw." At a Lord Mayor's dinner in Lon- 
don, an alderman sitting next to the Duke of Marlbor- 
ough, remarked, "Sir, yours must be a very laborious 
profession"; "No," replied the Duke, "we fight about 
four hours in the morning and two or three after dinner, 
and then we have all the rest of the day to ourselves." 

WOMAN 

GOD could not be everywhere, and therefore He made 
mothers, Rabbinical saying. A woman conquers 
when she flies, is Tasso's. Wherever women are honored, 
the gods are satisfied, is anonymous. Nothing, says Bal- 
zac, can ever console a woman for the loss of her beauty, 
but loving and beloved children. The more corrupt a 
century, affirms Richter, the more contempt there is in 
it for women. Amiel asserts, that woman is at once the 
delight and terror of man. George Eliot thinks the hap- 
piest women, like the happiest nations, have no history. 
It is Balzac's judgment, that English women have a 
genius for raising children. Seneca declares, that woman 
either loves or hates; that there is no third possibility. 
Of the four Lesbian poets three were women. It is 
a Hindu sentiment, that if the women of a house are 
beautifully arrayed, the whole house is decorated. It is 
a paradoxical saying of Balzac, that a woman is never 
so garrulous as when she holds her tongue. It is unac- 
countable, that in democratic Athens woman was so little 
respected. At the last Great Day, Renan declares, men 
will be judged by women, and the Almighty will merely 
vise the verdict. We are fearfully and wonderfully 



WOMAN 443 

made, especially women, is an observation of Thackeray. 
J. A. Symonds thinks it significant, that in "Plutarch's 
Lives," whereas we read of many noble Lacedaemonian 
ladies, comparatively little account is taken of the wives 
and mothers of Athenian worthies. The following is 
from ^Eschylus and relates to Clytemnestra, — 

"Her husband, 
Once the dear object of her love, to which 
Her swelling zone bore many a precious pledge." 

No woman, affirms Balzac, likes to listen to another 
woman's praises. The same author declares, that next 
to the pleasure of admiring the woman we love, is that of 
seeing her admired by others. According to Addison, 
a woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript. 
The same says a virtuous woman should reject the first 
offer of marriage, as a good man does that of a bishopric. 
The glory of a woman, Balzac thinks, is to be adored for 
a defect. What is better than gold? Jasper; What is 
better than jasper? Wisdom; What is better than wisdom? 
Woman; What is better than a good woman? Noth- 
ing, — appropriated from the Latin by Chaucer. Cole- 
ridge has discovered, that all the sarcasms on women to 
be found in Shakspeare are put into the mouths of vil- 
lains. Where women have the most culture, observes 
Hamerton, men are most open and sincere. Women were 
forbidden to witness the Olympic games. Modesty in 
woman; integrity in man, is the dictum of some one. 
The following is from Burns, — 

" Auld nature swears the lovely dears, 
Her noblest work she classes, O, 
Her prentice han' she tried on man, 
And then she made the lasses, O." 



444 LITERARY BREVITIES 

Balzac declares it easier for a woman to be a good wife 
than a good mother. We are told that Rome never saw 
a woman on the stage. More ungovernable than any 
other evil is a bad wife, is from the Talmud. Mother is 
the name of God in the hearts of little children, declares 
Thackeray. Sainte-Beuve thinks a woman's biography 
ought never to be written. Senator Hoar pronounces 
Mrs. Sarah Ripley, of Waltham, one of the most scholarly 
women America has produced. Napoleon found the pret- 
tiest women the hardest to make love to. Madame de 
Stael asked Napoleon whom he thought to be the greatest 
woman in antiquity, and whom he thought to be so at 
the present day, evidently looking for a compliment; 
Napoleon answered, "She who has borne the most chil- 
dren." Mrs. Burnett describes a woman as shallow as a 
brook in midsummer. It has been said in the praise of 
some men, that they could talk whole hours together 
upon anything; but that it must be owned to the honor 
of the other sex, that there are many among them who 
can talk whole hours together upon nothing. The Ves- 
tal Virgins, after living as priestesses for thirty years, 
were allowed to marry. Dowden informs us, that in the 
historical plays of Shakspeare — there being ten English 
ones — there is really only one happy woman, Henry 
V's wife Kate. Says Shakspeare, — "There was never 
yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass." When 
there is an old maid in the house, says Balzac, a watch- 
dog is not needed. This from Shakspeare, — 

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
Her infinite variety/ ' 

From the same again, — 

"But you, O you, 

So perfect and so peerless, are created 

Of every creature's best." 



WOMAN 445 



And again, — 



"She's beautiful; and therefore to be woo'd; 
She is a woman; therefore to be won." 

" — When maidens sue, 
Men give like gods." 

And this, — 

"That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, 
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman." 

And this, — "Frailty, thy name is woman." This also, 
— "Good wombs have borne bad sons." Also this, — 
"How hard it is for women to keep counsel." A man 
with a corrupt heart, according to Coleridge, has been 
sometimes saved by a strong head; but a corrupt woman 
is lost forever. Charles Kingsley has the following, — 

"Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; 
Do noble things, not dream them all day long; 
And so make life, death, and that vast forever 
One grand, sweet song." 

Rousseau pictures a woman of so amiable a weakness, 
that it seemed to add a charm to virtue. Balzac men- 
tions a wife with no dangerous brilliancy. He also says, 
that a woman is no older than she looks. He thinks there 
is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty. 
She looks rather conscious of her clothes, is Balzac's. 
It is Richardson's view, that women know better how 
to be sorry than to amend. One reason why she was 
satisfied with being a woman was, that she could not be 
married to a woman, from Richardson. However dis- 
tinguished a man may be, it is remarked by Madame de 
Stael, he rarely feels unqualified pleasure in the superior- 
ity of a woman. It was an ancient Roman law, that no 
one should make a woman his heir. St. Evremond 



446 LITERARY BREVITIES 

believes it less impossible to find in a woman the sound, 
strong reason of men, than to find in men the charm and 
the natural graces of woman. Mrs. Craigie asserts, 
that virtuous women will cling to men whom the good 
Samaritan would scarcely touch with the tongs. Lord 
Beaconsfield said of his wife, "She is an excellent crea- 
ture, but she never can remember whether the Greeks or 
the Romans came first." Benson laments the fact, that 
in English there is no female word for "man"; he thinks 
"woman" means something quite different, and always 
sounds slightly disrespectful; he thinks "lady" is impos- 
sible, except in certain antique phrases. Sienkiewicz 
compares women to will-o-the-wisps; if you chase one, it 
flees, if you flee, it pursues. The Franks are said to have 
debated in a church assembly whether or not a woman 
is a human being. Mahan knew of a housekeeper so good 
as to make a home unbearable. Congreve has the 
following, — 

"Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turned, 
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." 

Some one has declared, that a woman is not in her true 
sphere until she is a mother. No woman, says The Spec- 
tator, is capable of being beautiful, who is not incapable 
of being false. The woman that deliberates, says 
Addison, is lost. The prettiest girls, remarks Heine, find 
it hardest to get husbands; the three Graces were all old 
maids. Hawthorne thought the women of Scotland 
had a faculty of looking exceedingly ugly as they grow 
old. Cervantes would not engage to put a pin point 
between a woman's yea and nay. George Meredith 
declares, that women will want a change of air in Para- 
dise. In the opinion of Tolstoy, nothing is so advanta- 
geous to a young man as the society of clever women. It 



WOMAN 447 

has been claimed, that French women govern but can- 
not reign. Minerva, in the contest with Neptune as to 
which one should name Athens, won the day by the aid 
of the votes of women. It has been asserted, that women 
are mostly foolish, that the Almighty made them to match 
the men. Some one has gracefully written, — 

" — a woman with the sweet 
Behavior of a mother/ ' 



INDEX 



NAMES OF PERSONS, CHIEFLY AUTHORS, QUOTED OR MENTIONED, 
WITH NUMBERS ADDED TO INDICATE THE PAGE WHERE EACH 
EXTRACT OR ALLUSION OCCURS 



Aaron, 292 

Abbott, George J., 141 

Abbott, Lyman, 49, 53, 175, 336, 358, 

Abraham, 356, 436 

Acton, Lord, 389 

Adam, 298 

Adams, John, 22, 92, 146, 199, 337, 
406, 413, 419, 425 

Adams, John (Educationist), 114, 121, 

Adams, John Quincy, 93, 137, 181, 
277, 291, 338, 339, 383, 423 

Addison, 6, 37, 42, 46, 58, 61, 63, 68 
72, 73, 75, 78, 85, 95, 98, 119, 
146, 148, 154, 158, 159, 160, 163, 
171, 181, 189, 190, 195, 207, 210, 
222, 225, 226, 238, 241, 245, 247, 
251, 252, 255, 257, 263, 265, 267, 
273, 277, 281, 291, 315, 330, 337, 
340, 342, 351, 378, 388, 390, 400, 
440, 441, 443, 446 

Adler, Felix, 132 

Adrian, Emperor, 90, 303, 342 

Adrian IV, Pope, 28, 205 

^Elian, 366 

jEschines, 139, 185 

JEschylus, 32, 78, 103, 104, 105, 147, 
174, 185, 242, 255, 274, 297, 302, 
312, 324, 328, 376, 384, 409, 416, 

iEsop, 164, 376 

Agamemnon, 103 

Agassiz, 245 

Alaric, 34, 293, 390 

Alcibiades, 5, 127, 170, 176, 184, 220, 
384 

Alcott, Bronson, 124, 226 

Aldrich, Thomas B., 44, 384 

Aldus, John, 150 

Alexander the Great, 4, 12, 13, 22, 24, 
69, 83, 88, 125, 153, 155, 156, 176, 
196, 202, 267, 317, 318, 344, 346, 
406, 407 

Alexander I, 351 

Alexis, 237 



394 



383, 

321 

210, 

, 69, 
137, 
169, 
211, 
250, 
270, 
338, 
428, 



153, 
308, 
443 



347, 



, 34, 
184, 
374, 



Alfieri, 59 

Alfred, King, 74, 206 

Alison, Archibald, 146, 402, 408 

Allen, Grant, 288 

Allen, James Lane, 82 

Alston, Washington, 83 

Althorp, Lord, 263 

Alva, Duke of, 222 

Ames, Fisher, 5 

Amestris, 88 

Amiel, 43, 48, 52, 82, 109, 119, 133, 
186, 187, 191, 197, 258, 261, 280, 
320, 347, 348, 354, 364, 381, 392, 
418, 442 

Anne of Austria, 6 

Anne, Queen, 34, 75, 217, 254 

Andersen, Hans Christian, 55, 88, 192, 

Antigonus, 213 

Antinous, 28 

Antony, Mark, 9, 106, 200, 280, 378 

Apelles, 24, 180, 250, 256, 299 

Appleton, Daniel, 288 

Aristo, 151 

Aristophanes, 11, 52, 186, 294, 299, 
303, 355, 425 

Aristotle, 4, 6, 21, 26, 30, 61, 67, 73, 
79, 83, 110, 112, 115, 125, 129, 
132, 136, 167, 169, 176, 206, 215, 
248, 252, 254, 268, 274, 279, 289, 
298, 301, 315, 320, 321, 332, 347, 
402 

Arminius, 9, 407 

Arnauld, Antoine, 257 

Arnold, Matthew, 61, 71, 76, 82, 84, 
116, 123, 148, 159, 170, 232, 239, 
248, 253, 254, 256, 262, 279, 283, 
327, 331, 361, 363, 368, 381, 394 

Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 40, 117, 123, 
196, 342, 399 

Arnould, Mile., 273 

Arpuleius, 417 

Arthur, King, 198 

Ascesius, 361 



173, 

285, 
396, 



434 



301, 

:, 74, 
130, 
228, 
291, 
385, 



111, 

244, 
309, 

144, 



450 



INDEX 



Aspasia, 244, 259 

Atterbury, Francis, 384 

Attila, 345 

August, of Poland, the Strong, 48 

Augustine, Saint, 21, 147, 247, 270, 315, 

352 
Aurelius, Marcus, 41, 91, 242, 258, 267, 

348, 404, 416 
Austin, Charles, 70, 339 



Bach, 273 

Bacon, Francis, 24, 34, 40, 
78, 87, 97, 101, 107, 110, 
132, 140, 146, 152, 159, 
171, 175, 176, 178, 190, 
214, 232, 250, 264, 272, 
302, 305, 306, 308, 327, 
360, 362, 368, 370, 384, 
412 

Bacon, Roger, 368 

Bagehot, Walter, 59, 327 

Bailey, Philip J., 238 

Baillie, Dr., 195 

Bain, Alexander, 211 

Balaam, 361 

Balder, 243 

Balzac, 3, 7, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 
45, 47, 49, 51, 54, 56, 58, 
66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 
86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 
100, 101, 105, 108, 111, 
130, 134, 144, 145, 148, 
154, 156, 159, 160, 161, 
165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 
175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 
187, 188, 189, 190, 193, 
197, 208, 209, 210, 211, 
218, 219, 220, 223, 224, 
230, 234, 235, 238, 239, 
256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 
269, 270, 272, 274, 277, 
284, 288, 289, 290, 299, 
314, 316, 318, 319, 323, 
329, 336, 339, 341, 345, 
355, 358, 359, 366, 368, 
374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 
384, 386, 387, 388, 391, 
397, 401, 402, 403, 404, 
412, 413, 414, 416, 419, 
427, 433, 440, 442, 443, 

Bancroft, 26, 50, 73, 95, 119, 
218, 309 

Banks, Nathaniel P., 232 

Barbauld, Anna L., 93 

Barrie, James M., 161 

Barrow, Isaac, 84, 136, 175 

Barry, Comtesse du, 88 



44, 45, 58, 59, 
115, 119, 122, 
162, 164, 166, 
194, 210, 211, 
279, 285, 297, 
350, 352, 353, 
403, 405, 409, 



, 18, 19, 21, 23, 
, 35, 37, 40, 43, 
60, 61, 64, 65, 
77, 78, 82, 83, 
, 96, 97, 98, 99, 
112, 127, 128, 
149, 151, 153, 
162, 163, 164, 
170, 173, 174, 
183, 184, 185, 
194, 195, 196, 
214, 216, 217, 
226, 227, 228, 
240, 249, 254, 
261, 264, 268, 
280, 281, 283, 
305, 311, 313, 
326, 327, 328, 
346, 348, 350, 
369, 372, 373, 
379, 381, 382, 
392, 393, 395, 
405, 409, 411, 
420, 421, 426, 
444, 445 
201, 203, 204, 



Bates, Arlo, 19, 55 , 113, 160, 228 

Baxter, Richard, 215, 353 

Bayle, Pierre, 215, 247 

Beaconsfield (see Disraeli) 

Beatrice, 259, 263 

Beauclerk, Topham, 214 

Beaumarchais, 114. 440 

Becket, Thomas a, 41 

Beckford, William, 133, 142, 191, 286, 437 

Beecher, 295, 423, 424 

Beethoven, 5, 25, 74, 121, 129, 227, 275, 

342 
Bellew, Kyrle, 142 

Belloc, J. H. P., 145, 177, 183, 362, 382, 414 
Benson, Arthur C, 12, 46, 64, 129, 190, 

192, 219, 235, 263, 276, 278, 284, 289, 

342, 362, 372, 388, 400, 432, 446 
Bentham, Jeremy, 67, 152, 316 
Bentley, Richard, 81, 372 
Benton, Captain, 429 
Benton, Thomas Hart, 277 
Beranger, 4, 32 

Berkeley, Bishop, 252, 313, 322, 341 
Bernard, Saint, 317 
Besant, Walter, 413 
Beyer, Franz, 16 

Bielschowsky, 177, 178, 191, 342, 347 
Bigelow, John, 207 
Billington, Elizabeth, 77 
Bion, 308 

Birrell, Augustine, 168, 177, 199, 322 
Bismarck, 178, 195, 314, 318, 374, 409, 432 
Black, William, 85, 108, 289, 367, 401 
Blackburn, Senator, 435, 436 
Blackie, John Stuart, 37, 78, 363 
Blaine, 136, 184 

Blake, William, 22, 198, 212, 223 
Blondin, Charles, 155 
Blucher, 410 

Boccaccio, 33, 130, 201, 303, 311, 328, 413 
Boddington, 269 
Boethius, Ancius, 51 
Boileau-Despreaux, 30, 61, 86, 275 
Bolingbroke, 6, 171, 176, 181, 192, 229, 298, 

340, 413 
Booth, Edwin, 44, 94, 244, 438 
Booth, Junius Brutus, 102, 432 
Borne, Ludwig, 334 
Bossuet, 60, 84, 212, 339, 354, 358 
Boswell, James, 32, 81, 128, 170, 394 
Boteler, Dr., 420 
Botsford, George Willis, 174, 356 
Braddock, General, 410 
Brahe, Tycho, 215 
Brasidas, 407 

Breckenridge, Rev. John J., 427 
Bright, John, 4, 15, 38, 136, 250, 275 
Brignoli, 35 



INDEX 



451 



Bronte, Charlotte, 192 

Brooke, Lord, 264 

Brooks, John G., 98 

Brooks, Phillips, 138 

Brougham, Lord, 131, 132, 217, 252 425, 

437 
Brown, John, 263 

Brown, Dr. John, 59, 86, 177, 219, 341, 362 
Browne, Sir Thomas, 34, 35, 192, 222, 351, 

371, 372, 414, 440 

Browning, 4, 12, 13, 14, 23, 27, 41, 44, 48, 
58, 68, 78, 85, 91, 109, 110, 127, 152, 
153, 170, 176, 195, 223, 233, 237, 239, 
242, 244, 245, 251, 253, 257, 294, 295, 
296, 297, 298, 299, 301, 302, 303, 305, 
306, 315, 324, 328, 330, 331, 340, 342, 
345, 353, 357, 360, 373, 376, 378, 386, 
399, 404, 426 

Browning, Mrs., 33, 35, 130, 173, 180, 191, 
234, 256, 279, 405, 410 

Brownson, Orestes A., 359 

Bruce, Robert, 202, 302 

Briihl, Graf von, 436 

Brunetto, Latini, 172 

Brutus, Marcus Junius, 92, 133, 153 

Bryant, 84, 245, 297, 330, 368, 378, 398, 402 

Buchanan, 177, 233 

Buchurst, 103 

Buckland, Dr., 127 

Buckle, Henry Thomas, 305, 393 

Buddha, 91, 143 

Budgell, Eustace, 345 

Buffon, 347, 417 

Bull, Ole, 5, 9, 275, 284 

Bulwer-Lytton, 11, 29, 30, 44, 46, 77, 91, 
95, 97, 109, 138, 149, 156, 177, 194, 
218, 230, 233, 255, 256, 262, 268, 271, 
278, 289, 297, 311, 318, 334, 346, 361, 

372, 373, 374, 376, 379, 389, 390, 414, 
416, 423 

Bunyan, 31, 78, 131, 223, 307, 376 

Burgess, Daniel, 439 

Burke, 10, 34, 84, 87, 114, 135, 140, 142, 

167, 170, 180, 181, 182, 217, 226, 295, 

309, 315, 318, 339, 340, 343, 372, 384, 

413, 416, 417, 424 
Burnet, Gilbert, 139 
Burnett, Mrs. Frances H., 165, 444 
Burns, 31, 50, 70, 85, 91, 129, 156, 166, 

244, 245, 257, 281, 283, 307, 331, 361, 

375, 378, 426, 437, 443 
Burrell, William, 32 
Burton, Robert, 132, 244, 291, 295, 296, 

299, 377, 385, 420 
Burton, Sir Richard, 228, 246 
Burton, Sir Sim, 78 
Bussy, Comte de, 171 
Bute, Lord, 135 



Butler, Bishop, 295, 322, 399 

Butler, Gen. B. F., 193 

Butler, Samuel, 153, 162, 164, 171, 293, 

295, 298, 302, 315, 3«9, 415, 437, 438 
Buxton, Jedediah, 102 
Byron, 12, 22, 33, 80, 84, 85, 156, 177, 216, 

220, 242, 252, 262, 297, 316, 317, 318, 

325, 333, 398, 411 

Caesar, Augustus, 9, 12, 65, 69, 89, 106, 167, 
200, 216, 232, 234, 250, 254, 291, 391, 
407 

Caesar, Julius, 13, 83, 86, 101, 159, 174, 
175, 179, 184, 192, 200, 203, 207, 232, 
263, 296, 316, 317, 339, 342, 347, 370, 
374, 401, 408, 409, 410, 427 

Cain, 265, 349 

Calhoun, 182, 296, 429 

Caligula, 51, 88, 214, 400 

Calthrop, Gordon, 267 

Calvin, 31, 84, 356, 358, 361 

Camden, 420 

Camoens, 252, 253, 333 

Campbell, Thomas, 79, 92, 328, 330, 437 

Canning, George, 167, 198, 339 

Canonicus, 368 

Carinus, 53 

Carlyle, 5, 15, 17, 18, 38, 41, 43, 50, 53, 
62, 86, 96, 97, 107, 110, 111, 114, 120, 
123, 127, 129, 148, 152, 156, 158, 159, 
168, 170, 173, 174, 175, 180, 185, 192, 
197, 217, 218, 226, 227, 229, 232, 233, 
234, 235, 236, 245, 246, 250, 251, 255, 
280, 304, 310, 318, 324, 334, 335, 341, 
343, 354, 359, 362, 365, 374, 377, 385, 
389, 393, 395, 397, 399, 414, 417, 422, 
426, 434, 436 

Cartier, Jaques, 101 

Cartwright, Peter, 354 

Cassius, Avidius, 267 

Cassius, Longinus, 153 

Catalini, 215 

Catiline, 139 

Cato, the Elder, 51, 89, 91, 156, 184, 278, 
337, 344, 350, 362, 380, 424 

Catullus, 261 

Cavour, 338 

Cellini, Benvenuto, 162, 166, 284, 405 

Celsus, 212 

Cervantes, 11, 14, 35, 62, 168, 198, 210, 
238, 253, 273, 291, 292, 297, 301, 303, 
305, 306, 307, 346, S63, 377, 382, 404, 
411, 417, 446 

Chadwick, John W., 59, 223, 263, 290, 322 

Chandler, Senator Zachariah, 436 

Channing, William E., 42, 135, 142, 421, 
438 

Chantry, Sir Thomas, 19 



452 



INDEX 



Charlemagne, 178, 207 

Charles I, 6, SI, 208, 279, 398, 406 

Charles II, 4, 14, 20, 105, 201, 359, 390, 
424, 441 

Charles V, of Spain, 206, 219, 297, 300, 
402 

Charles IX, 19 

Charles XII, of Sweden, 347, 370, 408 

Charlevoix, 349 

Chateaubriand, 190 

Chaucer, 31, 32, 42, 153, 234, 254, 279, 
301, 303, 308, 309, 328, 377, 381, 438, 
443 

Chesterfield, 43, 70, 83, 110, 146, 153, 271, 
326, 371, 397, 398, 403, 412 

Chesterton, 24, 44, 114, 176, 229, 266, 330, 
360, 392, 440 

Choate, Rufus, 367 

Chrysostom, Saint, 4, 139, 155, 203 

Cibber, Colley, 78, 328 

Cicero, 6, 9, 15, 35, 51, 63, 82, 91, 92, 98, 
100, 101, 137, 138, 143, 147, 161, 164, 
168, 170, 209, 232, 243, 252, 267, 268, 
286, 296, 303, 305, 307, 321, 332, 344, 
373, 375, 379, 393, 401, 402, 413, 415, 
417, 419 

Clay, 32, 277, 323, 338, 429, 432 

Clemm, Virginia, 268 

Cleon, 8, 165 

Cleopatra, 9, 27 

Clinton, De Witt, 152 

Clive, Lord, 408 

Clough, A. H., 434 

Cobden, 319 

Coke, Sir Edward, 404 

Colenso, Bishop, 362 

Coleridge, 4, 19, 51, 62, 70, 72, 83, 84, 102, 
104, 107, 118, 142, 146, 148, 156, 169, 
173, 180, 187, 188, 205, 211, 214, 221, 
226, 235, 250, 258, 266, 272, 279, 280, 
319, 322, 324, 325, 333, 343, 353, 417, 
419, 443, 445 

Coleridge, Hartley, 84 

Coleridge, Sara, 229 

Collier, Price, 46 

Collingwood, 263 

Collins, William, 168 

Columbus, 31, 294, 417 

Conde, 83 

Confucius, 64, 125 

Congreve, 346, 371, 372, 441, 446 

Constantine, 35, 199, 203, 351, 361 

Constantius, 35, 203 

Cook, James, 186 

Cooper, 34, 82, 85, 160, 368, 381 

Cooper, the Actor, 220 

Cordoue, Ferdinand, 227 

Coriolanus, 161, 387 



Corneille, 55, 104 

Corot, 179 

Cortereal, 203 

Corwin, Tom, 433 

Cotard, M. J., 287 

Cotta, 355 

Coulevain, 12 

Cousin, 120, 236, 415 

Cowley, 28, 158, 239 

Cowper, 47, 75, 87, 145, 157, 160, 194, 229, 

237, 252, 254, 301, 339, 353, 395, 414, 

434, 436 
Cox, S. S., 435 
Craigie, Mrs., 10, 135, 262, 271, 284, 392^ 

395, 429, 446 
Crassus, Lucius Licinius, 159, 207, 339 
Crawford, F. Marion, 434 
Creasy, 174, 175, 176 
Creeden, Alexander, 216 
Creevey, 86, 213, 236 
Crichton, Admirable, 117 
Critias, 66, 127 
Cromwell, 20, 32, 33, 56, 101, 134, 176, 209, 

271, 317, 347, 378, 387, 398, 407, 424 
Crosland, Camilla, 331 
Crothers, 71, 74, 83, 130, 140, 229, 265. 

283, 327, 331, 363, 428 
Crozier, J. B., 400 
Culrossie, 214 
Cumberland, Duke of, 6 
Cunningham, Allen, 17, 23, 82, 120, 154, 

174, 343, 389 
Cureton, William, 113 
Curtis, G. W., 6, 288, 336 
Curtis, W. E., 337 
Curtius, Marcus, 35 
Curtius, Quintus, 283, 400 
Curtius, Rufus, 319, 384 
Cushman, Charlotte, 16, 106 
Custer, General, 221 
Cutts, General, 277 
Cuvier, 32 

D'Alambert, 284 

Damocles, 159 

Dante, 15, 33, 60, 83, 86, 87, 131, 146 164, 
172, 185, 201, 244, 249, 259, 263, 274, 
289, 307, 313, 316, 317, 327, 328, 329, 
332, 366, 371, 390, 396, 440 

D'Arblay, Madame, 3, 29, 130, 151, 255 

Darwin, 310, 369 

Daudet, 102 

d'Auteroche, Marquis, 335 

David, 168, 171, 301 

David, Jaques Louis, 237 

Davis, Jefferson, 338 

Davy, Sir Humphrey, 252, 295 

De Foe, 11, 59, 241, 358 



INDEX 



453 



Democritus, 79, 118, 134, 282, 310, 349 

Demophon, 69 

De Morgan, William, 150, 223, 382, 388, 

431 
Demosthenes, 5, 61, 83, 101. 137, 138, 

139, 141, 143, 176, 185, 186, 267, 307, 

316, 402 
De Quincey, 65, 76, 178, 179, 285, 294, 355, 

381 
Desaix, 83 
Descartes, 322 
De Stael, Madame, 49, 72, 85, 143, 152, 

218, 260, 275, 319, 347, 361, 388, 404, 

444, 445 
Dexter, Timothy, 214 
Dickens, 61, 77, 80, 86 
Diderot, 121, 221, 364 
Dinocrates, 22 
Diocletian, 206, 297 
Diodorus, Siculus, 53, 281 
Diogenes, 35, 239, 441 
Dionysius, 31, 49, 124, 159, 400 
Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, 12, 18, 46, 47, 

132, 135, 154, 160, 161, 173, 175, 177, 

211, 227, 297, 315, 318, 319, 325, 341, 

361, 384, 387, 416 
Dix, John A., 244, 312 
Dobson, Austin, 231 
Dolabella, 296 
Dolon, 134 
Donatus, 14 
Donne, Dr. John, 303 
Douglas, Stephen A., 141 
Dowden, Edward, 7, 49, 198, 240, 255, 280, 

304, 345, 397, 415, 444 
Downe, John, 167 
Doyle, Sir A. Conan, 69 
Dresser, H. W., 64, 113, 117, 141, 150, 190, 

225, 240, 276, 285, 290 
Drinkwater, Sir John, 209 
Dryden, 5, 44, 64, 74, 86, 100, 104, 159, 

163, 247, 248, 256, 260, 266, 303, 308, 

309, 326, 381, 390, 403, 423, 441 
Dubois, 431 
Dumas, Pere, 10, 18, 34, 92, 108, 170, 175, 

230, 238, 239, 261, 262, 289, 311, 

319, 364, 367, 378, 385, 390, 414, 419, 

440 
Dundee, Viscount, 52 
Dunning, John, 438 
Duval, Jules, 22 

Eckermann, Johan Peter, 222 

Edward I, 154 

Edward II, 31, 202 

Edward HI, 199 

Edward IV, 201 

Edward, The Black Prince, 77, 306 



Edwards, Jonathan, 62, 108, 137, 143, 176, 
217 

Egina, 194 

Eldon, Lord, 137 

Eliot, Charles W., 123, 360 

Eliot, George, 3, 27, 38, 40, 45, 47, *9, 57 
61, 70, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 92, 98, 
111, 113, 125, 139, 142, 153, 173, 182, 
197, 226, 238, 239, 240, 242, 248, 249, 
259, 260, 266, 279, 292, 305, 345, 355, 
361, 374, 395, 402, 442 

Elizabeth, Princess, 352 

Elizabeth, Queen, 23, 32, 34, 35, 103, 152, 
202, 208, 222, 254, 277, 341, 363, 385, 
398, 441 

Ellesmere, Lord, 167 

Elliott, Charles, 436 

Emerson, 4, 12, 16, 25, 27, 30, 33, 38, 41, 
46, 50, 55, 60, 63, 66, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 
84, 107, 108, 109, 110, 114, 122, 124, 
126, 129, 136, 137, 139, 142, 143, 153, 
154, 158, 168, 174, 175, 178, 179, 189, 
195, 196, 200, 202, 204, 209, 222, 226, 
229, 233, 235, 242, 248, 249, 267, 271, 
279, 280, 281, 288, 292, 295, 304, 312, 
315, 320, 321, 323, 324, 325, 329, 337, 
347, 349, 354, 357, 365, 366, 373, 374, 
379, 380, 382, 393, 396, 399, 403, 404, 
408, 416, 419, 422, 425, 434, 436 

Emmons, Nathanael, 439 

Ennius, 57, 303, 407 

Epaminondas, 161, 278 

Epernon, Due d', 215 

Epictetus, 162, 295, 322 

Epicurus, 59, 79, 170, 214, 263, 332 

Erasmus, 92, 113, 124, 157, 191, 215, 372, 
434 

Eratosthenes, 93, 155 

Euclid, 111 

Eugene, Prince, 146 

Eugenie, Empress, 35 

Eupolis, 109 

Euripides, 67, 73, 85, 101, 104, 183, 189, 
223, 227, 255, 265, 289, 297, 301, 304, 
311, 314, 324, 331, 343, 386, 416 

Evarts, 215, 228, 357, 421, 435 

Everett, C. C, 12, 43, 64, 66, 174, 260, 
281, 357, 396 

Everett, Edward, 145, 220, 357 

Evremond, Saint, 240, 445 

Farinelli, 344 

Farragut, 157, 277, 410 

Feinaigle, 269 

Felton, Cornelius C, 36 

Felton, John, 36, 257 

Fenelon, 6, 75, 84, 112, 166, 182 

Ferrero, 199 



454 



INDEX 



Ferress, Lord, 222 

Fessenden, W. P., 86, 141, 178 

Feversham, General, 199 

Fichte, 322 

Field, James T., 273, 393 

Fielding, 14, 18, 22, 40, 65, 75, 165, 168, 

220, 234, 261, 274, 276, 280, 306, 307, 

309, 320, 382, 389, 415 
Finck, Henry T., 16, 275 
Finett, Sir John, 310 
Fiske, John, 117, 143, 154, 177, 201, 207, 

227, 238, 239, 262, 277, 358, 365, 385, 

391, 406 
Flaminius, Lucius, 89 
Flaxman, 20, 24, 34, 206, 210, 416 
Fletcher, 229 
Fontana, Carlo, 250 
Fontenelle, 172, 226, 424 
Forrest, 389 
Foulon, 88 

Fox, 11, 79, 112, 135, 138, 186, 318 
Francis, of Assisi, 47 
Francis I, 300 

Francis, Sir Philip (see Junius) 
Franklin, 31, 33, 38, 69, 76, 83, 119, 186, 

193, 195, 225, 270, 305, 306, 317, 325, 

354, 363, 369, 371, 387, 401, 407, 419, 

425 
Frederic, Harold, 73, 167, 423 
Frederick 1,^207, 222, 408, 411 
Frederick the Great, 33, 35, 67, 73, 83, 

124, 131, 134, 144, 158, 171, 179, 182, 

213, 221, 271, 361, 408, 410, 429 
Frost, Rev., 213 
Froude, 173, 245 
Fuller, Margaret, 180, 350, 436 
Fuller, Thomas, 75, 154, 163 
Fulton, 206, 411 
Fuseli, John Henry, 142 

Gadsden, James, 33 

Gainsborough, 146, 174 

Galen, 228 

Galiani, 273, 430 

Galileo, 33, 370 

Galloway, Joseph, 313 

Gardner, Henry J., 337 

Garfield, 111, 163, 316, 359, 385 

Garrick, 99, 102, 126, 137, 180, 317, 

381 
Garrison, 65 
Gaunt, John of, 306 
Gautier, 4 
Gay, John, 170, 188 
Geddes, Dr., 288 
Geddes, Jenny, 360 
Genevieve de Bourbon, 432, 
Geoffrin, Madame, 129, 172, 220 



George I, 255, 398 

George II, 20, 222, 398, 412, 432, 441 

George III, 31, 40, 85, 137, 168, 204, 205, 
215, 260, 263, 352, 438 

George IV, 169, 213 

Ghibeline, 207 

Gibbon, 34, 43, 50, 51, 55, 83, 84, 86, 90, 
119, 146, 173, 184, 251, 260, 318, 342, 
344, 346, 364, 371, 403, 414, 422 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 299 

Giorgione, 193 

Gladstone, 22, 42, 87, 101, 116, 129, 139, 
184, 216, 218, 267, 294, 317, 337, 338, 
339, 340, 360, 380, 392, 398, 425 

Glaucus, of Chios, 370 

Godfrey de Bouillon, 352 

Godkin, E. L., 113, 343, 433 

Goethe, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 21, 
22, 23, 25, 32, 33, 38, 42, 44, 45, 47, 
50, 56, 58, 60, 62, 63, 64, 72, 85, 86, 
87, 91, 96, 98, 108, 110, 111, 113, 115, 
118, 122, 129, 133, 135, 145, 146, 156, 
165, 168, 171, 173, 174, 175, 177, 178, 
179, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191, 195, 213, 

218, 221, 222, 223, 230, 233, 235, 237, 
238, 239, 247, 248, 249, 250, 252, 256, 
259, 261, 263, 264, 265, 269, 288, 289, 
290, 295, 298, 303, 304, 305, 306, 309, 
313, 316, 318, 326, 327, 329, 330, 333, 
334, 335, 348, 354, 359, 372, 373, 374, 
377, 385, 389, 392, 393, 395, 415, 438 

Goldsmith, 28, 34, 43, 71, 79, 87, 131, 161, 
167, 170, 176, 180, 244, 270, 271, 307 
324, 335, 339, 386, 413, 422, 423, 424, 
425, 438 

Gourgaud, Gaspard, 106, 222 

Gracchus, Caius, 136 

Grafton, 66 

Grant, 82, 227, 232, 373, 388, 406 

Granville, Lord, 434 

Grattan, 238 

Gray, Asa, 436 

Gray, Thomas, 81, 140, 162, 168, 170, 189, 

219, 241, 246, 271, 284 
Grayson, 192 

Greeley, 58, 436 
Greene, Gen. Nathaniel, 411 
Grenville, George, 168 
Greville, Charles, 335, 384, 405 
Grieg, 16, 134 
Grimm, Frederick M., 167 
Grote, 34, 122, 198 
Gryllus, 151 
Guelf, 207 

Guise, Chevalier de, 216 
Guizot, 150 

Gustavus Adolphus, 83, 105, 176, 201, 
277 > 



INDEX 



455 



Hadrian (see Adrian) 

Hale, Edward Everett, 51, 54, 110, 118 

Hale, Matthew, 323, 362 

Hale, Senator, 436 

Halifax, Earl of, 216, 313, 384 

Hall, G. Stanley, 63, 130, 365, 405 

Halleck, R. P., 188 

Haller, Albrecht von, 175 

Hamerton, P. G., 13, 21, 25, 111, 118, 120, 
171, 179, 242, 275, 276, 342, 346, 382, 
392, 443 

Hamilton, Alexander, 79, 247, 255, 336, 
340, 408 

Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, 150 

Hamilton, Sir William, 115, 125 

Handel, 5, 81, 215, 275 

Hannibal, 154, 176, 253, 382, 388, 406, 407, 
410 

Hare, A. W., 18, 29, 54, 71, 86, 94, 123, 
192, 263, 264, 362, 388 

Harold, 199 

Harper, W. Rf, 158 

Harris, William T , 21, 109, 128, 418 

Harrison, Frederic, 80, 139, 279 

Harrison, William H., 200, 219 

Harvey, 294, 370 

Hasdrubal, 94, 154, 408 

Hassan, Sultan, 25 

Hastings, Warren, 140, 428 

Hawkins, Sir John, 150 

Hawthorne, 3, 5, 20, 31, 38, 49, 52, 56, 57, 
72, 73, 78, 80, 85, 111, 118, 121, 129, 
142, 151, 154, 157, 165, 168, 187, 188, 
197, 216, 237, 242, 245, 246, 248, 249, 
250, 252, 263, 265, 266, 277, 281, 285, 
286, 296, 301, 314, 318, 353, 363, 368, 
375, 377, 384, 393, 399, 421, 446 

Hawthorne, Julian, 104 

Hay, John, 39, 130, 439 

Hay, Lord Charles, 335 

Haydn, 77, 275 

Haydon, B. R., 5, 20, 61, 62, 71, 130, 142, 
144, 157, 180, 211, 220, 319, 363, 364, 
372, 389, 439 

Hayes, R. B., 337, 421 

Hayne, 136, 143, 257 

Hazlitt, 22, 27, 66, 70, 119, 131, 153, 175, 
176, 213, 227, 233, 246, 284, 316, 
386 

Hearn, Lafcadio, 21, 62, 75, 108, 157, 171, 
178, 231 

Hegel, 304, 321 

Heine, 6, 14, 20, 24, 71, 76, 85, 87, 99, 113, 
115, 146, 147, 152, 157, 160, 176, 218, 
230, 231, 235, 236, 250, 253, 260, 264, 
265, 277, 282, 286, 321, 323, 330, 334, 
360, 363, 368, 379, 380, 396, 400, 408, 
425, 430, 432, 435, 437, 446 



Helps, Sir Arthur, 71, 89, 160, 186, 
234, 264, 275, 278, 367, 371, 372 : 
404 

Henderson, Col. J. P., 150 

Henrietta, Queen, 208, 429 

Henry II, of England, 41, 202, 203, 
222 

Henry III, of England, 199, 205, 266 

Henry III, of France, 215 

Henry IV, of England, 201 

Henry IV, of France, 19, 49, 163 

Henry V, of England, 444 

Henry VI, 201 

Henry VII, 34, 410 

Henry VIII, 7, 89, 411 

Heraclitus, 151, 251 

Heraud, J. A., 163 

Herbart, 114 

Herbert, George, 33, 69, 146, 298, 441 

Herder, 5, 44, 254 

Herkimer, General, 132 

Herod, The Great, 89 

Herodotus, 4, 54, 61, 90, 197, 219, 358 

Herophilus, 368 

Herschel, 15, 153, 369 

Hesiod, 212, 308, 384 

Hesselts, Counselor, 92 

Higginson, T. W., 3, 40, 62, 100, 109, 
220, 272, 320, 350, 386 

Hill, Rowland, 15 

Hillard, George S., 235 

Hippias, 31 

Hippocrates, 287, 309 

Hoar, George F., 65, 120, 126, 139, 
209, 215, 257, 337, 423, 444 

Hoar, Judge Samuel, 46, 164 

Hogarth, 26 

Holmes, John, 126, 439 

Holmes, O. W., 11, 69, 122, 126, 129, 
280, 304, 325, 343, 354, 366, 384, 

Homer, 4, 21, 24, 31, 32, 38, 73, 84, 
101, 133, 162, 174, 179, 227, 244, 
252, 277, 281, 291, 295, 298, 299, 
318, 324, 328, 330, 332, 333 

Honorius II, Pope, 207 

Honorius, Flavius, 50 

Hood, 81, 436 

Hooker, Richard, 353,378 

Hope, Adam, 129 

Hopkins, Mark, 96 

Horace, 14, 17, 23, 26, 42, 58, 69, 76, 
93, 102, 134, 144, 147, 152, 167, 
187, 213, 245, 248, 279, 291, 292, 
298, 301, 306, 307, 309, 312, 324, 
326, 341, 347, 351, 367, 378, 396, 

Hostilianus, 203 

Howard, Blanche Willis, 29, 67, 172 
288, 393 



211, 

388, 



205. 



157, 



193, 



183, 
400 
, 87, 
245, 
300, 



, 77, 
174, 
296, 
325, 
415 

230, 



456 



INDEX 



Howell, James, 29, 94, 99, 113, 156, 
228, 276, 285, 341, 362, 363, 370, 
405, 417, 433 

Howells, 66, 125, 178, 242, 246, 261, 
352, 417, 422, 438 

Hubbard, Elbert, 102, 258, 301, 420 

Hudson, Henry N., 23, 421 

Hugo, 4, 5, 10, 11, 13, 21, 26, 34, 48, 
55 t 63, 77, 80, 86, 92, 94, 105, 144, 
158, 160, 164, 173, 193, 197, 212, 
222, 238, 262, 265, 275, 276, 285, 
290, 315, 331, 335, 343, 346, 353, 
373, 381, 387, 411, 412, 414, 417, 

Hull, Commodore, 99 

Humboldt, William von, 54, 212 

Hume, 14, 31, 48, 50, 55, 66, 81, 119, 
205, 216, 233, 307, 321, 343 

Hume, Joseph, 425 

Hunt, Leigh, 19, 29, 76, 96, 131, 188, 
254, 264, 275, 278, 289, 295, 332, 
409, 433 

Hutchinson, Thomas, 225 

Hutton, Edward, 364 

Huxley, 63, 87, 124, 130, 132, 158, 
211, 216, 224, 227, 241, 310, 322, 
391, 406 

Hyde, Tom, 15 



219, 
374, 

290, 



, 54, 
156, 
214, 

287, 
366, 
441 



186, 



219, 
349, 



194, 
371, 



Ibsen, 59, 89, 119, 171, 197, 270 

Innocent III, 360 

Innocent VIII, 371 

Ireland, Joe, 377 

Irving, Henry, 105 

Irving, Washington, 60, 189, 250, 273, 277, 

316, 335 
Iselin, Isaac, 45 

Isocrates, 137, 143, 277, 402, 424 
Issachar, 87 

Jackson, Andrew, 132, 177, 212, 219, 337, 

338, 383, 407, 433 
Jackson, Thomas (Stonewall), 123, 178, 



Jacob, 87 

James I, 53, 54, 68, 160, 
241, 310, 356, 427, 

James II, 52, 66, 139, 
324, 340, 398, 441 

James, Henry, 8, 27, 
86, 93, 117, 162, 
225, 255, 259, 261, 
340, 375, 377, 382, 
437, 438, 441 

James, William, 8, 18, 
118, 126, 178, 228, 
286, 362, 363, 364, 

Jandun, De, 124 

Jay, John, 194 



, 163, 186, 208, 216, 

441 

193, 200, 202, 214, 

29, 45, 56, 70, 85, 
185, 187, 215, 223, 
, 284, 285, 291, 304, 
, 387, 418, 420, 422, 

30, 45, 47, 54, 72, 
229, 234, 257, 282, 
365, 370, 399, 416 



Jefferson, Joseph, 93, 402 

Jefferson, Thomas, 37, 53, 57, 76, 92, 
137, 166, 181, 182, 189, 199, 218, 
255, 317, 329, 336, 359, 380, 399, 
421 

Jeffrey, Francis, 82, 250 

Jeffreys, Chief Justice, 193 

Jehu, 310 

Jerome, Saint, 417 

Jessel, Sir George, 101 

Jesus, 12, 18, 32, 35, 58, 212, 247, 270, 
354, 357, 360, 417 

Jewett, Sarah Orne, 48, 342, 372 

Joan of Arc, 132 

Job, 10, 129, 293, 296, 308, 310 

Johannes, King, 90 

John, King of England, 46, 218, 377 

John, Saint, 214, 250, 269, 274 

Johnson, Dr., 5, 14, 15, 16, 30, 32, 42. 
44, 61, 62, 70, 71, 75, 80, 81, 84, 
101, 109, 111, 114, 118, 122, 125, 
127, 128, 130, 131, 144, 146, 147, 
153, 158, 161, 162, 163, 168, 169, 
175, 185, 188, 192, 193, 194, 214, 
217, 223, 227, 230, 235, 236, 238, 
266, 273, 277, 285, 295, 296, 297, 
305, 307, 308, 317, 318, 322, 326, 
335, 337, 343, 344, 347, 351, 394, 
418, 433, 437, 439 

Jonah, 429 

Jonathan, 168, 171 

Jones, Paul, 74 

Jonson, Ben, 68, 76, 80, 105, 129, 139, 
262, 291, 302, 328 

Jordan, David Starr, 118 

Josephine, 268 

Jotham, 251 

Joubert, 12, 22, 42, 59, 66, 81, 116, 
132, 189, 209, 237, 246, 253, 254, 
259, 272, 326, 329, 337, 363, 397, 
415, 416 

Jourdain, M ., 36 

Jowett, 135, 306, 364 

Judas, 440 

Julian, 350 

Junius, 26, 34, 246, 301, 318, 364, 372 

Justinian, 48, 51 

Juvenal, 93, 152, 188, 195, 282, 293, 
303, 305, 334, 403, 417, 440 



110, 
249, 
419, 



353, 



43, 
■ 89, 
126, 
152, 
170, 
216, 
251, 
298, 
334, 
395, 



147, 



131, 
258, 
403, 



297, 



Kallicrates, 306 

Kant, 64, 131, 348, 375 

Kean, 104 

Keats, 4, 9, 12, 28, 29, 71, 76, 274, 275, 330 

Keene, Laura, 18 

Kellermann, General, 224 

Kemble, 40 

Kempis, Thomas a, 291, 307 



INDEX 



457 



Kent, Chancelor, 357 

Keppler, 33 

Khufu, 205 

Kildare, Earl of, 433 

King, Ruf us, 96 

King, Thomas Starr, 422 

Kingsley, 36, 97, 392, 445 

Kipling, 315, 422 

Kish, 418 

Kleber, J. B., 83 

Klopstock, 44, 76 

Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 152, 162 

Knightly, 34 

Kossuth, 115 

Kropotof, 193 

Kutuzoff, 411 

La Bruyere, 56, 79, 268, 393, 428 

La Fayette, Comtesse de, 60, 86 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 32 

La Fontaine, 43, 162, 220, 306, 349, 439 

Lamb, 6, 9, 10, 26, 29, 30, 31, 54, 71, 106, 
118, 148, 185, 229, 266, 364, 393, 418, 
419, 424, 432, 438 

Landor, Henry S., 186 

Landor, Walter Savage, 3, 9, 14, 18, 19, 
20, 38, 51, 57, 62, 71, 73, 77, 81, 82, 
86, 87, 88, 90, 93, 95, 98, 102, 111, 113, 
116, 125, 129, 139, 144, 149, 153, 168, 
176, 180, 189, 191, 194, 195, 198, 209, 
211, 216, 221, 224, 228, 236, 239, 244, 
249, 252, 254, 258, 265, 269, 273, 276, 
280, 283, 301, 315, 317, 318, 321, 322, 
323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 333, 336, 345, 
350, 351, 355, 366, 382, 384, 385, 389, 
400, 402, 404, 411, 415, 421 

Lang, Andrew, 164, 173, 175, 244, 248, 423, 
428 

Lange, J. P., 207 

Lanier, 87, 334, 365 

Lannes, Jean, 83 

Laotsze, 148 

La Place, 154 

La Rochefoucauld, 60, 94, 95, 142, 162, 
170, 171, 188, 264, 272, 302, 402, 440 

Latrobe, C. J., 116, 211 

Laura, 150, 219, 259, 261 

Lavater, 19, 44 

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 130 

Lecky, 233, 375, 400, 405, 411 

Lee, "Light Horse Harry," 304 

Lee, Robert E., 313 

Leibnitz, 179, 233, 298, 320 

Lely, 209 

Lemaitre, Jules, 339, 362, 375 

Lemormand, Madame, 391 

Leo X, Pope, 7 

Leoni, 366 



Leonidas, 293 

Le Sage, 12, 42, 45, 71, 73, 105, 137, 166, 

189, 238, 247, 248, 265, 299, 373, 421, 

428, 438 
Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 35 
Leasing, 21, 22, 35, 59, 72, 77, 79, 105, 149, 

159, 177, 186, 190, 230, 254, 255, 261, 

262, 311, 315, 323, 326, 333, 361, 372, 

381, 393, 398, 400, 408 
Lewes, G. H., 20, 80, 171, 179, 247 
Lewis, Dixon H., 281 
Lichtenberg, Georg C, 132 
Licinius, 138, 159 
Lincoln, 34, 181, 208, 232, 234, 314, 317, 

318, 320, 323, 383, 385, 388, 414, 429 
Lind, Jenny, 40, 151, 273 
Liszt, 275 

Little, Frances, 39, 263 
Livingston, Chancelor, 206 
Livius, Marcus, 101 
Livy, 38, 62, 143, 294, 297 
Lochiel, 52 
Locke, 16, 57, 67, 109, 111, 132, 133, 176, 

181, 188, 196, 239, 249, 317, 321, 322, 

397, 421 
Lockhart, 32, 129 
Lodge, Henry C, 65 
Lodge, Thomas, 28 
Longfellow, 7, 32, 49, 56, 86, 136, 245, 251, 

301, 305, 309, 328, 330, 353, 368 
Longstreet, General, 199 
Lorrain, Paul, 360 
Louis XI, 207, 315, 341 
Louis XIII, 208 
Louis XIV, 9, 33, 83, 95, 141, 142, 175, 182, 

183, 200, 201, 206, 254, 257, 300, 346, 

367, 373, 383, 407, 429 
Louis XV, 200, 221, 299, 367 
Louis XVI, 147, 159, 200, 236, 343, 367 
Lounsbury, T. R., 59, 79, 81 
Lowell, 5, 8, 15, 19, 22, 30, 39, 41, 45, 57, 

59, 60, 85, 113, 117, 123, 134, 145, 

149, 150, 163, 166, 170, 173, 174, 177, 

178, 208, 212, 218, 219, 242, 243, 246, 

249, 262, 263, 268, 278, 288, 314, 328, 

329, 332, 334, 342, 379, 381, 386, 392, 

393, 396, 397, 430, 434 
Lubbock, 17 
Lucan, 65 

Lucian, 175, 292, 295, 298, 301 
Lucilius, 417 
Lucretia, 259 

Lucretius, 256, 281, 282, 297 
Lulli, 272 
Luther, 18, 86, 92, 126, 250, 273, 279, 286, 

301, 319, 353, 354, 359, 360, 368, 410 
Lycurgus, 182 
Lysander, 200 



458 



INDEX 



Lysias, 137 
Lysimachus, 371 
Lysystratus, 421 

Macaulay, 10, 13, 32, 36, 38, 43, 52, 57, 62, 
65, 67, 70, 79, 82, 87, 96, 100, 105, 115, 
118, 131, 132, 135, 137, 138, 143, 154, 
167, 168, 175, 181, 182, 202, 228, 246, 
247, 248, 250, 255, 267, 316, 317, 325, 
326, 330, 337, 339, 344, 363, 377, 381, 
386, 387, 392, 393, 399, 400, 403, 416, 
435 

McCarthy, 36, 51, 55, 70, 84, 115, 154, 155, 
181, 187, 226, 319, 321, 336, 337, 339, 
406 

Machiavelli, 10, 81, 100, 160, 242 

McClellan, General, 388 

McCullough, J. E., 87 

McDougal, Senator, 430 

Macgregor, 307 

Mackintosh, 310 

Madison, Dolly, 341 

Madison, James, 255, 383 

Maecenas, 33 

Maevius, 158 

Mahaffy, J. P., 325 

Mahan, Admiral, 446 

Mahomet, 18, 101, 148, 173, 212, 270, 276, 
351, 353 

Manning, Cardinal, 394 

Mansfield, Lord, 204, 438 

Manzoni, 338 

Marcellus, 33, 69, 256 

Margaret of Richmond, 201, 410 

Marguerite of Valois, 19 

Maria Theresa, 148 

Marie Louise, 268 

Marius, Caius, 86, 207, 355 

Markham, Edwin, 174 

Markof, 335 

Marlborough, Duke of, 6, 75, 81, 146, 174, 
271, 344, 385, 407, 408, 442 

Marlowe, 76, 147, 266 

Marshall, Chief Justice, 430 

Marsyas, 31, 400 

Martel, Charles, 200 

Martial, 97, 241, 382, 418 

Mary, Tudor, Queen, 114 

Mason, J. M., 205 

Mason, Jeremiah, 235 

Massillon, 141, 142, 182 

Massinger, 229 

Masson, 428 

Mather, Cotton, 371 

Matthews, Brander, 105 

Matthews, William, 80, 232, 431 

Mazarin, Cardinal, 86, 215 

Medici, Lorenzo de, 207, 319, 389 



Medici, Marie de, 215 

Melancthon, 368 

Melbourne, Viscount, 65 

Menander, 303 

Mencius, 124, 225 

Mendelssohn, 273 

Mephibosheth, 171 

Meredith, George, 29, 39, 44, 74, 98, 106, 
156, 171, 180, 191, 194, 195, 197, 206, 
212, 229, 255, 287, 311, 327, 347, 365, 
373, 375, 381, 388, 411, 446 

Methuselah, 439 

Michelangelo, 7, 21, 24, 28, 33, 155, 173, 
216, 250, 298, 312, 393 

Mickle, W. J., 396 

Middleton, Bishop, 76 

Milburn, Blind Preacher, 435 

Mill, J. S., 12, 109, 112, 114, 121, 173, 190, 
191, 217, 227, 245, 351, 396, 401 

Miltiades, 156, 384 

Milton, 4, 12, 25, 32, 33, 38, 40, 43, 47,56, 
60, 67, 79, 99, 107, 129, 137, 138, 147, 
153, 190, 213, 223, 227, 243, 244, 252, 
254, 256, 275, 281, 284, 285, 291, 295, 
297, 300, 308, 311, 325, 327, 330, 331, 
332, 334, 342, 351, 353, 356, 376, 386, 
394, 396, 397, 402, 409, 413, 418, 424 

Milward, Richard, 241 

Minos, 49 

Mirabeau, 231, 286, 295, 348 

Mitchell, Weir, 41, 70, 109, 120, 138, 159, 
161, 162, 163, 167, 168, 169, 184, 195, 
250, 252, 392, 394, 421 

Mitford, Mary R., 258 

Moliere, 55 y 60, 68, 69, 88, 98, 105, 306, 
325 

Moltke, Count von, 406, 416 

Momus, 287 

Monk, Lord, 424 

Monmouth, Duke of, 199 

Monroe, 92, 336 

Montagu, Lady, 223, 224, 256, 260, 325 

Montaigne, 11, 26, 30, 38, 56, 58, 71, 73, 
77, 88, 94, 112, 113, 116, 122, 127, 129, 
133, 150, 159, 173, 185, 198, 217, 245, 
246, 250, 255, 276, 291, 299, 304, 305, 
324, 331, 335, 349, 368, 370, 379, 408, 
422, 440 

Montesquieu, 121, 192, 299, 414 

Montgomery, 325 

Moody, 365 

Moon, G. W., 127, 242, 298, 305 

Moore, C. L., 333 

Moore, George, 30, 68, 72, 122, 248, 266, 
272, 276 

More, Sir Thomas, 122, 213, 241, 287, 
434 

Morley, John, 43, 74, 182, 338, 416, 425 



INDEX 



459 



Morosini, 217 

Morrison, Congressman, 435 

Morse, John T., 361 

Moses, 152, 351, 356 

Motley, 59, 201, 239, 285, 316, 409 

Moulton, R. G., 328, 356 

Mountjoy, Lord, 208 

Mummius, 22 

Munger, T. C, 177 

Miinsterberg, 18, 111, 115, 126, 128, 175, 

274 
Murat, 347 

Murray, Sir George, 136 
Murska, Madame di, 215 
Mustapha, Sultan, 163 

Napier, 66, 428 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 4, 13, 37, 79, 83, 85, 
86, 89, 94, 101, 106, 107, 131, 132, 152, 
154, 156, 164, 165, 169, 173, 174, 175, 
176, 192, 194, 207, 216, 217, 220, 222, 
231, 232, 268, 271, 278, 282, 288, 289, 
290, 306, 316, 317, 318, 323, 335, 338, 
339, 340, 341, 366, 379, 386, 387, 391, 
406, 407, 408, 410, 411, 428, 432, 444 

Napoleon, Prince, 15, 430 

Napoleon, III, 430 

Narvaez, 439 

Nash, Beau, 424 

Neander, 218 

Nehemiah, 310 

Nelson, 16, 108, 152, 263, 300, 319 

Nero, The Consul, 154 

Nero, Emperor, 127, 133, 418 

Newcastle, Duke of, 432 

Newman, Father, 54, 148, 317, 330, 332, 
365, 372, 402 

Newton, 16, 29, 33, 84, 128, 131, 136, 165, 
174, 175, 179, 186, 227, 317, 330, 388 

Newton, John, 353 

Ney, 410 

Nilsson, 35 

Noah, 33 

Norfolk, Duke of, 401 

North, Lord, 426, 428 

North, Professor, 122, 428 

Norton, C. E., 123 

Novalis, 42, 48, 106, 358 

Nugent, Thomas, 36 

O'Connell, 132, 137, 295, 425 

Oliphant, Mrs., 140, 373 

Olympias, 130 

Overkirk, 224 

Ovid, 77, 99, 146, 206, 227, 245, 285, 289, 

412 
Oxenstiern, 181 
Oxford, Earl of, 32 



Paganini, 5, 112 

Page, T. N., 55, 382 

Paley, 4, 218 

Palfrey, J. G., 201 

Palmerston, 226, 317 

Paracelsus, 109 

Park, Mungo, 278 

Parker, Gilbert, 356 

Parker, Theodore, 108, 119, 122, 135, 223, 

268, 421, 438 
Parkman, 186, 201, 311 
Parnell, 115 
Parr, Dr., 419 
Parsons, G. I., 187 
Parton, James, 389 
Pascal, 27, 46, 61, 67, 68, 78, 84, 89, 116, 

117, 138, 148, 149, 170, 177, 227, 228, 

257, 264, 270, 282, 327, 358, 360, 

363, 376, 399, 404, 421 
Pater, 3, 186, 258, 303 
Paterculus, 298 
Patti, 275 

Paul, Saint, 212, 250, 311, 353, 360, 417 
Pausanias, 92, 396 
Payne, E. J., 72, 322 
Payne, John Howard, 69 
Peabody, Sophia, 216 
Pearson, Bishop, 242 
Peck, H. T., 58, 131, 355 
Peel, 88 
Penn, 380 

Pepys, 105, 214, 250, 392 
Percy, Bishop, 61 
Pericles, 21, 49, 136, 137, 140, 193, 244, 

254, 402 
Perry, Bliss, 61, 116, 127, 220, 398, 425, 

437 
Perry, Commodore, 34 
Pestalozzi, 108, 112, 121, 125, 128, 235, 

386 
Peter, The Great, 33, 54, 204, fc99, 364 
Peter, The Hermit, 360 
Peter, Saint, 96, 228 
Petrarch, 4, 30, 33, 35, 50, 93, 130, 150, 

157, 172, 200, 201, 219, 259, 261, 287, 

328, 393 
Petronius, 162, 420, 421 
Phelps, Elizabeth S., 258 
Phidias, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 103, 178, 250, 

360 
Philip II, 32, 277 

Philip, of Macedon, 44, 138, 201, 346 
Philippe, Louis, 183 
Philippides, 371 
Phillips, Wendell, 86, 136, 141, 142, 193, 

423 
Philoxenus, 222 
Phocion, 209, 385 



460 



INDEX 



Piatt, Don, 140 

Pierce, Franklin, 155, 177 

Pietro, Aretino, 160 

Pilate, 157 

Pindar, 4, 32, 57, 139, 146, 277, 278, 323, 

351, 363 
Pisistratus, 250 
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 114, 131, 135, 139, 

140, 143, 172, 234, 272, 341, 383, 414, 

427 
Pitt, "William, 6, 11, 139, 140, 186, 217, 

228, 318, 343, 368, 414, 425, 441 
Plato, 4, 24, 32, 49, 58, 61, 79, 124, 129, 

131, 132, 133, 151, 176, 196, 214, 226, 

234, 238, 268, 269, 271, 296, 298, 303, 

321, 324, 326, 355, 364, 379, 402 
Plautus, 81, 197, 225, 295, 376 
Pliny, The Elder, 112, 203, 316 
Pliny, The Younger, 38, 56, 75, 153, 237 
Plutarch, 12, 60, 73, 88, 127, 129, 133, 143, 

153, 161, 176, 184, 278, 282, 289, 324, 

325, 340, 399,v443 
Poe, 6, 43, 78, 80, 83, 115, 121, 168, 184, 

252, 260, 268, 274, 277, 328, 332, 334, 

377, 400 
Polk, J. K., 338 
Polybius, 6 

Pompadour, Madame de, 299 
Pompey the Great, 74, 152, 206, 339 
Pompey, Sextus, 200 
Poore, Ben Perley, 430 
Pope, 10, 30, 45, 56, 61, 81, 87, 95, 96, 98, 

114, 137, 148, 152, 154, 164, 168, 211, 

212, 242, 245, 248, 251, 260, 266, 285, 

292, 295, 298, 303, 304, 308, 316, 320, 

325, 330, 335, 343, 430, 435 
Porson, Richard, 421 
Portia, 92 
Powers, Hiram, 23 
Praxiteles, 20, 246 
Prentiss, S. S., 141 
Prescott, 58, 61, 63, 116, 129, 197 
Prevost, d'Exiles, 368 
Price, Dr., 142 
Proctor, Senator, 435 
Protagoras, 251 
Ptolemy II, 354 
Publilia, 268 

Pyrrho, The Sceptic, 217 
Pythagoras, 61, 157, 169, 190, 274, 347 

Quincy, Josiah, 248 
Quinet, Edgar, 330 

Rabelais, 237, 306, 311, 359 

Racine, 18, 40, 56, 61, 77, 79, 95, 99, 104, 

123, 138, 156, 194, 220, 225, 232, 240, 

271, 310, 342, 376, 429, 430 



Radcliff, Dr. John, 187, 218 

Raleigh, Walter (Author), 106, 190, 273, 

284, 332 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 347 
Ranee, Jean de, 60, 269 
Randolph, 106, 272, 361 
Raphael, 22, 25, 87, 250 
Raymond, H. J., 433 
Reade, 9, 70, 75, 115, 170, 256, 257, 274, 

385, 419 
Recamier, Madame, 70 
Reid, Thomas, 96 
Rembrandt, 23, 316 
Renan, 442 
Repplier, Agnes, 246 
Retz, Cardinal de, 215 
Reynolds, John, 339 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 19, 20, 23, 77, 146, 

167, 179, 325, 433 
Richard, Coeur de Lion, 77, 88, 203 
Richard II, 205 
Richard HI, 33, 102, 105, 385 
Richardson, C. F., 103, 247, 249 
Richardson, Samuel, 10, 29, 43,. 210, 215, 

235, 243, 249, 253, 261, 262, 263, 271, 

318, 356, 384, 445 
Richelieu, Cardinal, 13, 61, 76, 156, 166, 

176, 192, 194, 218, 244, 256, 317, 319, 

329, 354, 389, 390, 409 
Richelieu, Marechale de, 367 
Richter, 5, 14, 43, 60, 87, 93, 110, 111, 120, 

128, 129, 133, 183, 189, 199, 245, 249, 

278, 440, 442 
Rienzi, 50, 196, 317 
Riis, Jacob, 157 
Ripley, George, 212, 359 
Ripley, Sarah, 444 
Robespierre, 31, 93, 140, 237, 343, 348, 379, 

405 
Robinson, Rev. Stuart, 427 
Rochester, Earl of, 384 
Rochette, Bishop, 432 
Rogers, Samuel, 71, 80, 92, 102, 109, 142, 

328, 335, 418 
Roland, Madame, 129, 236, 322, 374, 404 
Rooke, Sir George, 199 
Roscoe, William, 237 
Rosebery, 11, 56, 64, 139, 140, 172, 186, 

207, 222, 225, 339, 340, 366, 412, 413, 

426, 427 
Rossetti, 22 
Rossini, 179 
Rothschild, A. M., 194 
Rousseau, 7, 17, 38, 41, 57, 81, 91, 112, 

113, 126, 128, 163, 167, 185, 189, 209, 

216, 219, 239, 242, 252, 257, 269, 339, 

345, 355, 360, 362, 377, 379, 392, 398, 

423, 430, 445 



INDEX 



461 



Rubens, 26 

Rumbold, 52 

Ruskin, 5, 76, 86, 148, 168, 235 

Russell, G. W. E., 55, 181, 195 

Russell, Lord, 195 

Russell, Lord John, 430 



Sainte-Beuve, 19, 55, 60, 71, 79, 82, 134, 
145, 177, 197, 254, 264, 272, 314, 327, 

332, 342, 362, 364, 383, 410, 416, 430, 
431, 439, 444 

Saladin, 77 
Sales, Francis de, 308 
Sallust, 167 
Samuel I, 309 
Samuel II, 304, 309 

Sand, George, 27, 35, 70, 87, 96, 107, 
127, 145, 149, 184, 187, 191, 226, 

259, 265, 266, 283, 306, 321, 340, 
345, 352 

Sappho, 84, 251, 328 

Sara, 356 

Sartoris, 296 

Saul, 418 

Savonarola, 142, 221, 265 

Sawyer, Senator, 442 

Saxe, Marechal de, 35, 221 

Scaliger, 215 

Scarron, 359 

Schelling, 322 

Scherer, Edmond, 347 

Schiller, 22, 56, 62, 67, 74, 75, 79, 85, 92, 
99, 102, 111, 121, 145, 159, 167, 171, 
189, 193, 202, 218, 222, 223, 227, 237, 

260, 270, 281, 284, 289, 345, 349, 383, 
387, 394, 397, 403 

Schlegel, 85, 103, 104, 174, 253, 424 

Schopenhauer, 197, 320 

Schurz, 273 

Scipio, Africanus, 154, 171, 186, 380 

Scott, 3, 5, 14, 21, 22, 26, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39, 
41, 43, 45, 50, 57, 58, 64, 76, 80, 82, 83, 
86, 93, 95, 98, 100, 106, 115, 120, 132, 
147, 151, 157, 162, 169, 170, 171, 178, 
192, 194, 195, 210, 221, 229, 231, 238, 
243, 245, 249, 250, 258, 267, 277, 280, 
281, 294, 297, 298, 299, 316, 317, 325, 

333, 345, 348, 350, 373, 375, 376, 389, 
393, 407, 429, 433, 438 

Scudery, Madeline de, 151 

Seeley, Sir J. R., 145, 405 

Selbourne, Lord, 135 

Selden, John, 98, 241, 254, 416 

Seneca, 13, 23, 31, 38, 50, 66, 88, 91, 99, 
101, 102, 110, 127, 133, 136, 145, 151, 
161, 165, 167, 176, 183, 184, 187, 189, 
196, 224, 234, 236, 266, 267, 279, 292, 



294, 295, 297, 298, 308, 312, 315, 321, 
346, 381, 384, 386, 387, 400, 403, 404, 
412, 413, 442 

Servetus, 358 

Severus, Cassius, 136 

Sevigne, Madame de, 170, 190, 219, 247, 
258, 264, 306, 381, 382 

Seward, 48, 152 

Sewell, J. M., 341 

Seymour, Charles, 15 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 81, 399 

Shakspeare, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 17, 22, 27, 28, 29, 
31, 32, 33, 35, 38, 46, 47, 57, 60, 62, 63, 
65, 67, 68, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 
84, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 93, 95, 96, 99, 
101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 115, 121, 
129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 
139, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152,154, 
155, 159, 163, 165, 166, 173, 174, 175, 
176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 184, 188, 190, 
193, 197, 198, 201, 210, 211, 223, 225, 
226, 227, 232, 240, 242, 243, 244, 245, 
247, 248, 250, 251, 253, 254, 255, 258, 
261, 262, 265, 268, 270, 271, 274, 282, 
283, 286, 287, 291, 295, 296, 297, 299, 
300, 301, 302, 304, 305, 306, 308, 309, 
310, 311, 324, 328, 330, 331, 332, 333, 
341, 342, 344, 346, 352, 378, 381, 384, 
387, 393, 394, 396, 398, 399, 401, 402, 
403, 404, 409, 411, 417, 420, 425, 426, 
432, 443, 444 

Shaw, G. B., 440 

Shelley, 12, 26, 76, 81, 84, 94, 245, 269, 275, 
326, 332, 352, 380, 396, 416 

Shenstone, 56 

Sheridan, General, 227 

Sheridan, R. B., 34, 85, 138, 140, 177, 217, 
218, 221, 227, 230, 295, 336, 388, 419, 
420, 428, 431 

Sherman, General, 175, 227 

Sherman, Roger, 6, 339 

Shirley, James, 97, 158 

Shrewsbury, Duke of, 340 

Siddons, Mrs., 259, 319 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 6, 32, 113, 162, 232, 252, 
277, 313, 328, 373, 380, 408 

Sienkiewicz, 270, 446 

Sime, James, 177 

Simon, Saint, 6 

Sinclair, May, 41, 44, 79, 105, 117, 260, 
321, 429 

Sixtus V, 52, 89 

Skimpole, Harold, 195 

Slidell, 205 

Smiles, Samuel, 223 

Smith, Adam, 67, 83, 116, 146, 324 

Smith, Goldwin, 199 

Smith, John, 90, 242 



462 



INDEX 



Smith, Sidney, 5, 32, 39, 70, 112, 157, 164, 

248, 359, 402, 422, 425, 432 
Smollett, 82, 95, 173, 208, 247, 260, 297, 

299 
Smythe, Newman, 351 
Socrates, 5, 11, 18, 24, 42, 58, 70, 73, 81, 

91, 109, 110, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 

137, 151, 170, 176, 217, 218, 248, 271, 

273, 274, 318, 321, 329, 332, 336, 353, 

369, 414, 424 
Solomon, 57, 97, 303 
Solon, 122, 162, 190, 334, 412, 413 
Sophocles, 39, 41, 58, 104, 163, 169, 247, 

251, 255, 291, 295, 298, 306, 309, 328, 

376, 399, 402, 418 
Sophroniscus, 151 
Sothern, 18, 438 

Southey, 20, 107, 152, 219, 236, 285, 324 
Sparks, E. E., 67 
Sparks, Jared, 201 
Spectator, The, 30, 85, 96, 113, 144, 157, 

179, 231, 437, 446 
Spencer, Herbert, 64, 108, 111, 120, 121, 

127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 183, 188, 251, 

279, 293, 308, 321, 403 
Spencer, Mrs., 314 
Spenser, 28, 32, 38, 40, 82, 96, 98, 131, 143, 

152, 254, 260, 261, 280, 308, 312, 327, 

330 377 385 
Stanley/ Dean, 75, 220, 389, 425, 431, 436 
Stedman, 329 
Steele, 11, 33, 59, 63, 112, 145, 148, 169, 

210, 231, 236, 259, 280, 340, 352, 353, 

363, 394, 403, 415, 420 
Stephen, Leslie, 172 
Sterling, Earl of, 304 
Sterne, 33, 58, 61, 83, 213, 216, 227, 262, 

307, 353, 359 
Stevenson, R. L., 13, 23, 109, 162, 169, 185, 

212, 239, 244, 268, 317, 346, 360, 385, 

415, 432, 441 
Story, Justice, 430 
Story, W. W., 20, 21, 223, 322, 430 
Stratonicus, 266 
Strickland, Agnes, 208, 440 
Stuart, Gilbert, 99, 100 
Sue, Eugene, 8, 74, 128, 165, 188, 189, 345, 

372, 385, 399, 416 
Sulla, 86, 207 
Sulpitia, 333 

Sumner, Charles, 86, 129, 242, 316, 424 
Swedenborg, 366 
Swift, 10, 34, 36, 54, 58, 61, 63, 83, 84, 91, 

100, 106, 140, 149, 158, 170, 172, 174, 

176, 186, 188, 193, 209, 214, 216, 217, 

218, 219, 220, 224, 230, 234, 260, 288, 

319, 320, 331, 340, 359, 360, 379, 381, 

382, 384, 391, 409, 416, 419, 420, 423 



Swinburne, 364, 438 

Symonds, J. A., 19, 23, 31, 84, 104, 105, 
185, 255, 259, 312, 351, 355, 443 

Tacitus, 82, 143, 153, 207, 306, 314, 362 

Taine, 174 

Tait, Archbishop, 432 

Talleyrand, 77, 79, 117, 307, 316, 349, 404, 
433 

Talmud, The, 64, 99, 120, 162, 444 

Tamerlane, 89 

Tamponet, Dr., 355 

Tappan, President, 143 

Tarik, 203 

Tasso, 27, 42, 81, 98, 99, 146, 152, 198, 213, 
248, 279, 286, 298, 345, 386, 442 

Taylor, Bayard, 34, 58, 118, 134, 140, 155, 
258, 346, 368, 422, 427 

Taylor, Father, 16, 436 

Taylor, Henry, 156, 413 

Taylor, Jeremy, 33, 41, 44, 127, 154, 214, 
234, 345, 351, 356 

Taylor, Zachary, 37, 200, 220 

Temple, W. J., 81 

Tennyson, 3, 5, 43, 49, 79, 83, 87, 93, 129, 
132, 139, 160, 162, 171, 197, 239, 249, 
250, 257, 282, 296, 299, 300, 302, 306, 
308, 324, 328, 329, 358, 387, 392, 410 

Terence, 41, 73, 107, 171, 197, 261, 279, 386 

Terregiano, 155 

Terry, Ellen, 20, 87, 113, 118, 142, 316 

Tertullian, 289 

Thackeray, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 19, 20, 40, 45, 
48, 56, 61, 63, 72, 76, 77, 80, 82, 84, 
86, 98, 118, 152, 153, 160, 163, 180, 
185, 186, 189, 209, 247, 249, 250, 258, 
265, 269, 274, 280, 286, 297, 300, 307, 
373, 375, 376, 378, 399, 405, 410, 417, 
421, 428, 430, 439, 441, 443, 444 

Thales, 334 

Thayer, W. R., 177, 194, 254 

Themistocles, 206, 383, 396 

Theocritus, 68, 144, 223, 244 

Theodoric, 51 

Theodosius, 50 

Theognis, 401, 414 

Theramenes, 66 

Thersites, 376 

Thompson, Rev. Dr., 432 

Thompson, Richard, 337 

Thompson Seton, 239 

Thomson, James, 124, 378 

Thoreau, 4, 13, 34, 41, 94, 118, 145, 152, 
179, 240, 263, 284, 286, 354, 355, 392, 
403, 412, 413, 418 

Thrale, Mrs., 439 

Thucydides, 4, 5, 42, 49, 199, 209, 229, 
234, 306, 342, 393, 402, 407, 409 



INDEX 



463 



Thurlow, Lord, 421 

Ticino, 347 

Tilly, Count of, 387 

Timoleon, 212, 391 

Timon, 35 

Titian, 93, 193, 393 

Titus, 310 

Toqueville, Alexis de, 401 

Tolstoy, 29, 63, 65, 94, 122, 124, 179, 191, 

196, 231, 266, 272, 326, 335, 347, 375, 

382, 400, 430, 446 
Tooke, Home, 292 
Toombs, Robert, 424 
Townshend, Charles, 135 
Townshend, Gen. George, 147 
Trajan, 12 

Trollope, 30, 59, 84, 106, 265, 390, 434 
Tupper, 118, 307 
Turenne, 83, 98 

Turgenieff, 54, 72, 124, 256, 265, 277, 313 
Turget, 158 
Turgot, 182 

Turner, 19, 22, 26, 76, 196, 242, 414 
Turreau, 89 
Twain, Mark, 379, 429 
Tyers, Tom, 317 
Tyler, John, 177, 402 
Tyler, Wat, 205 
Tyndall, 123, 406 

Urban II, Pope, 204 



Valerian, Emperor, 401 

Valla, 131 

Van Buren, 37, 77, 96, 177 

Van Dyke, Henry, 34, 70, 113, 123, 137, 

224, 288, 386, 404 
Van Eyck, John, 25 
Varro, 31, 301 
Varus, 9, 93, 407 
Vaughan, Sir Charles, 282, 433 
Vedder, Elihu, 66, 423 
Vega, Lope de, 245, 297 
Verdi, 331 

Victoria, Queen, 36, 114, 142, 187, 200, 205 
216, 267 

Vincent, Saint, 74, 85 

Virgil, 4, 15, 29, 38, 57, 59, 73, 77, 87, 130, 
147, 158, 168, 193, 232, 242, 245, 249, 
250, 252, 256, 303, 331, 334, 354, 381, 
385, 419 

Virgin Mary, 21 

Vitruvius, 250 

Voltaire, 42, 54, 83, 84, 87, 96, 103, 106, 
121, 127, 141, 144, 152, 156, 157, 165, 
171, 175, 193, 195, 197, 207, 220, 222, 



226, 227, 235, 252, 255, 262, 273, 286, 
326, 327, 372, 423, 425, 440 
Voute, 95 

Walker, James, 257 

Wallace, Lew, 413 

Wallenstein, 104, 221 

Waller, Edmund, 20, 28, 424 

Walpole, Horace, 10, 174, 255, 316, 390, 

425 
Walpole, Robert, 66, 146, 203, 394, 398 
Walton, Izaak, 167, 292 
Warburton, Thomas, 303 
Ward, Artemus, 419 
Warwick, Earl of, 205 
Washington, 16, 34, 37, 41, 89, 194, 198, 

252, 267, 271, 303, 318, 323, 329, 336, 

340, 380, 410, 419, 431 
Wayland, Francis, 117 
Wayne, "Mad Anthony," 16, 74, 316 
Webster, 18, 93, 125, 136, 141, 143, 151, 

236, 244, 257, 297, 323, 390, 429 
Wedderspoon, David, 225 
Weed, Thurlow, 320 
Wellesley, Lady, 431 
Wellington, 5, 33, 36, 88, 107, 130, 136, 

157, 161, 194, 340, 406, 408, 424 
Wendell, Barrett, 63, 67, 186, 254, 278, 

362, 405 
Werner, Franz von, 358 
Wesley, 123, 141, 306, 314, 365 
Wetherill, 425 
Whateley, 397 
Whewell, William, 432 
Whipple, E. P., 142, 183, 255, 286, 289, 

429 
Whistler, 405 

White, Andrew D., 152, 361 
Whitefield, 139, 143 
Whitman, Walt, 14, 25, 29, 62, 87, 96, 148, 

179, 195, 198, 255, 270, 288, 340, 344, 

365, 367, 393, 438 
Whittier, 137, 210, 258, 271, 333, 37.9, 425 
Wieland, 44 

Wiggin, Kate Douglas, 45, 141 
Wilberforce, 33 
Willert, P. F., 182, 286 
William Rufus, 52, 93, 207, 296 
William III, 33, 34, 69, 75, 154, r 187, 199, 

216, 232, 267, 338, 359, 413 
William IV, 371, 431 
William, The Conqueror, 15, 25, 48, 199, 

202, 205 
William, The Silent, 75, 132, 199, 308 
Winkelried, 293 
Willis, N. P., 150 
Wilson, Richard, 146 
Winter, William, 23, 75, 80, 105, 197 



464 



INDEX 



Wister, Owen, 156, 388 

Wolfe, General, 147, 204, 432 

Wolsey, Cardinal, 62 

Wood, Charles, 136 

Woodberry, George Edward, 59, 64, 94, 
111, 117, 244, 325, 333, 350 

Wordsworth, 19, 28, 32, 38, 47, 59, 64, 71, 
82, 83, 84, 85, 118, 147, 156, 173, 186, 
188, 190, 228, 238, 243, 245, 249, 263, 
271, 280, 282, 284, 287, 304, 308, 318, 
325, 329, 330, 331, 342, 367, 375, 399, 
403, 416, 432 

Worth, Sir Dudley, 324 

Wotton, Sir Henry, 325, 397, 413 

Wren, Sir Christopher, 8, 165 

Wundt, 321 

Wurmser, General, 323 



Wycherley, 330 
Wyclif, 359 

Xenophon, 58, 87, 114, 151 
Xerxes, 88, 165, 199, 326, 409, 411 

York, Duke of, 214, 420, 428 
Young, Charles A., 369 
Young, Edward, 127, 191, 242, 256, 257, 
305, 307, 308, 309, 311, 334 395 

Zaleucus, 336 
Zeno, 32, 94, 218 
Zeuxis, 24 
Zisca, 214 
Zola, 391 
Zoroaster, 46, 144 



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